


Bonfire Hearts

by QuickLikeLight



Series: And I’ve been looking at the stars [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 90s fashion, 90s theme party, Additional Pairings in Notes, Alpha Derek Hale, Alpha Scott McCall, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Best Friends in Love, Bisexual Scott McCall, Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, Bisexuality, Blood Magic, Dirty Dancing, Everyone Is Alive, First Time, Fluff, Fraternities & Sororities, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Hale-McCall Pack, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Marijuana, Non-Linear Narrative, Oblivious Stiles, POV Multiple, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Pining Scott, Romantic Comedy, Seven Minutes In Heaven, Smut, Spin the Bottle, Stoners Scott McCall/Stiles Stilinski, Truth or Dare, Underage Drinking, canonical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:56:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickLikeLight/pseuds/QuickLikeLight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the six months since Stiles made Scott promise to never let him fall in love with another werewolf, Scott has been mostly successful at hiding his ever-growing feelings for his best friend. All that is definitely coming to an end tonight. As soon as the packs realize that Scott plans to pine in perpetuity, they put their heads together to mastermind a series of fantastically effective (horrifyingly fail-heavy) party games to push Scott and Stiles together. Will the pack’s enthusiasm land Scott that kiss he’s been thinking of since the Summer? Or will Stiles be spending bonfire night with someone else? </p><p>One part pining Alpha, one part oblivious best friend, two overly invested wolf packs, and a 90s themed frat party for the record books.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 
> 
>   
>  This fic is an exercise in what I thought might have happened had Derek Hale retained his Alpha ability and his pack from Season 2. The tags can be a bit bewildering but over all this is a light-hearted, fluffy college AU with a side of terrible pining, miscommunication, and theme party goodness. It's utterly self-indulgent and I hope you'll love it even half as much as I do.
> 
> This is not a Sterek fic, but does include past Sterek, which is the impetus for the major conflict in the story. Their relationship isn't highlighted in the story, for those of you who aren't into that ship. As usual, things in italics are in the past. For the most part, the time difference is six months, and happens in order. The side pairings include: Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes, Malia Tate/Kira Yukimura, Allison Argent/Lydia Martin (mention only), Isaac Lahey/Danny Mahealani, Jackson Whittemore/Original Female Character(s)
> 
> This fic could not exist without the influence of some very important, lovely, fantastic people. Without further adieu: 
> 
> For my betas, cheerleaders, and troubleshooters: [LC](http://anomalagous.tumblr.com), [Succulent](http://succulentassin.tumblr.com), [Bfab](http://bfab11.tumblr.com), and [Essbee](http://differintegrate.tumblr.com), [Dea](http://tofixtheshadows.tumblr.com), [Roane](http://roane72.tumblr.com), [Evith](http://wintergrey.tumblr.com), [Boots](http://bootsnblossoms.tumblr.com), and [Carrie](http://bleep0bleep.tumblr.com), all at different points in the story, you made this work and my life better. 
> 
> For my Root Cellar babes, thank you for the wars and the encouragement. For Essbee, Kate, and Brit, thank you especially for listening to me whine about this fic for literally a year. For LC, thank you so, so much for the beautiful art you created for my story, and for reading it and re-reading it and telling me it was good. Thank you so much. I could not have done it without you guys. 
> 
> Title is from James Blunt's [Bonfire Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1j1qwQQ8-Q).

* * *

“ _Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play / And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate / Baby I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake / Shake it off!_ ” Stiles’ mouth wrapped around the words as he sang, dancing enthusiastically with the broom in their small shared kitchen. Scott watched him quietly from the doorway, aware that he probably had another forty seconds before Stiles realized he was home early. He could move… could walk into the room, act like he hadn’t seen his best friend dancing like an idiot, save himself the second-hand embarrassment that was probably twelve times worse than any shame Stiles would feel. But that would mean pulling his eyes away from the slim figure swinging himself around in socked feet and Captain America boxers, the hood of Scott’s own red hoodie pulled up and bright green headphones fitted over his ears. Not for the first time that day, week, month, he found he didn’t particularly want to spare himself if it meant a few more seconds of watching Stiles in his natural habitat. “ _Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break, break, break / And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake / Baby I'm just gonna -_ ACK!”

Stiles ripped his headphones off and pushed the hood back, pulling the broom in front of his body as if to shield himself from Scott’s eyes. “Dude. You scared me!  What are you doing out of class so early?”

“Research day for our final, but I finished mine last week, so…” Scott trailed off, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Thought you might want to get lunch.”

“Oh, bro, of course, just let me -” Stiles broke off, gesturing to his bare legs, “- could I grab a… nah, that’d take too long, you’re probably hungr-”

“Go shower, Stiles,” Scott laughed, tossing his backpack to the ground and heading for the fridge. “I’m not _that_ hungry.”

“You’re always _that_ hungry,” Stiles whined. “You ate up all my leftovers at some point between eleven last night and four this morning, so I don’t want to hear about your outstanding force of will, Big Bad Wolf.”

Scott took a big drink of his bottle of water, biting back the words on the tip of his tongue: _Hurry, or I’ll eat you up, too._ Instead, he smiled and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a growing Alpha. Go shower. You smell like Lemon Pledge and it’s making me nauseous.”

Stiles harrumphed, muttering half-heartedly about how _it wouldn’t hurt you to smell like Lemon Pledge sometime_ , and retreated to the little bathroom that had been theirs for the better part of a year.

Scott’s phone vibrated insistently in his pocket, followed by the loud blast of the _Doctor Who_ theme, making him wince.

“Isaac, man, what’s up?”

_“Trying to get a head count for tonight. You two coming?”_

“Coming to…?” Scott scuffed his foot, wracked his brain.

_“Stiles was supposed to tell you, but I’m guessing he didn’t. It’s Bonfire Night with the Alpha Chis at theirs. Starts at sunset, and it’s 90s themed. And you guys have missed the last two house events, so…”_

“So what you’re saying is we have plans tonight. 90s themed plans.” Scott sighed. He had hoped for a quiet Friday night in, but with his finals almost all finished, he didn’t have a good reason not to go. Well - a good reason other than the real reason: his pack was a bunch of meddling superhumans, and while he’d been able to hide things fairly well early in the semester, he was pretty sure as soon as Isaac or Kira saw him with Stiles he’d be instantly discovered. Erica would probably know before he even got through the door.

_“Tell Stiles to bring back my striped scarf. I know he has it, and I-”_

“Gotcha, Isaac. See you tonight, I’m sure-”

_“I KNOW HE HAS IT SCOTT, YOU BETTER TELL HIM-”_ Scott cut the phone off decisively, silencing it in case Isaac decided to push the issue, or worse, get Jackson involved.

No one had been more surprised than Scott when Jackson and Isaac had shown up on his and Stiles’ first day at South Central State. That surprise was rapidly eclipsed by a sense of the inevitable as Jackson convinced them all to rush, finagled himself into a position of power at the Sigma Delta house, and suddenly had almost complete control over all their social lives. Now, halfway through Sophomore year, Isaac had stopped even apologizing when he called to deliver their summons.

“That Isaac?” Stiles asked around a toothbrush in his mouth while rubbing a fluffy white towel over his hair, another wrapped around his waist. “Told him I’d - sorry,” he turned and spat quickly into the sink, rinsing the brush briskly. “Told him I’d tell you about the thing, don’t know why he had to call.”

“Would you actually have told me?” Scott raised an eyebrow, smiling.

“Maybe,” Stiles shrugged. “Was gonna feel you out at lunch, see if you’d be up to it.”

“I hadn’t realized we’d missed two events already.” Scott leaned against the little breakfast bar and picked at his nails. He kept his voice over-casual, and Stiles snorted.

“Well, we’ve missed two official house events. It’s probably around five generic social invitations now.” Stiles looked thoughtful before adding, “Six if you count the night they all went to see that terrible monster movie marathon. I don’t. We should never have to subject ourselves to monster movies ever again, honestly.”

“You know Jackson’s probably pissed.” Scott crushed his empty water bottle, tossing the label in the trash and the plastic in the recycling bin. With each little swish he threw his hands up in celebration.

“Jackson can blow me,” Stiles smirked as he turned toward his bedroom. Scott followed him, pointedly not watching the slight sway of Stiles’ hips or the long, lean line of his back. Definitely not thinking about anyone blowing anyone.

“Why didn’t you tell me we were missing things?”

“Did you really want to go to a mixer with Allison’s sorority, Scott?” Stiles cocked an eyebrow and dropped his towel. Scott’s mouth did not go dry. _It didn’t_. “It seemed like you definitely would not have wanted to participate in that party, considering, and I didn’t want to push it.”

“It’s not that bad, man,” Scott groaned, rubbing one hand over his face.

“I’m not positive, but I’m _pretty fucking sure_ that last time you saw her you kept wolfing out at random for the next three days.” Stiles did not look impressed.

“I- That isn’t-”  
“Hey,” Stiles stopped him, hands in the air. “You were so not the only one who was shocked and aggreived about the whole Allison-&-Lydia-Hookup-of-the-Century thing, okay? Even if it does inspire a multitude of wet dreams. I’m just saying, I didn’t think you’d want to go see your first love at her big sorority bash while her girlfriend was in town from Boston. K?”

“That one, okay, but what about the other one?” Scott pressed, arms crossed over his chest.

“Ah, mmm, yeah. Cora,” Stiles stuttered, pulling his boxers up. Scott listened for the tell-tale uptick of his heartbeat and heard it immediately. Not lies, _fear_ , and fair enough. “Isaac told me Cora was coming into town, they hang out sometimes? And I just thought, you know… Derek might be with her, and I just… Sorry, man, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t deal with seeing either of them here. At home I can handle it, kinda, but not here. I should have told you, though, I mean -”

“Hey, man, it’s fine,” Scott smiled reassuringly. “Both fantastic reasons to stay in and play video games.”

“Like you need a reason to stay home. All you do is eat, sleep, and study as it is,” Stiles rolled his eyes, hoisting up his jeans. He wore them tighter than Scott did, slim through the leg and low on the waist, and he had to do a little hop to get settled in them, like some sort of reverse strip tease. It made Scott’s belly fill with butterflies. “Probably wouldn’t ever leave the apartment if I didn’t make you.”

“Hey, I asked you to lunch didn’t I?” Scott grinned, forcing himself to think of cut-in-half werewolves in order to distract from the growing arousal in the pit of his stomach. It was a disconcertingly familiar image.

“That you did, and I’m not even going to ask you where we’re going,” Stiles grinned, pulling a flannel shirt and a band tee out of his closet. “Mostly since we both already know we’re going to Burrito Shack.”

“Where else?”

* * *

 

" _Where are you keeping him, Derek?” Scott growled, standing in the doorway of the loft._

_“Scott, calm down. Take a deep breath, okay?” Derek’s voice was strained, like he was holding himself back. “My pack will take care of this. You just keep yours safe.”_

_“Derek, tell me where he is right now or I will smell him out myself, and when I do-”_

_“Scott, this isn’t your concern, okay? Cora and I will deal with this. Peter is our responsibility, and we’ll find him. We’ll… take care of it.”_

_“What are you talking about? I don’t give a shit about Peter,” Scott huffed, clawed fingers digging into the padding of his motorcycle helmet. Derek was quiet for interminable seconds._

_“You’re...not looking for Peter.” He looked struck dumb, forehead furrowed and mouth slightly agape. “Then who the fuck are you looking for?”_

_“Stiles, Derek. Where is_ Stiles _?”_


	2. Chapter 2

They sat at their favorite table - in a corner away from the windows so Scott could see everyone who came and went. Scott watched the teenagers behind the counter, the people passing by on the sidewalk, the harried businesswomen on their phones in the line. Stiles watched Scott. He catalogued the way Scott’s skin pulled more tightly over his jaw these days, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, the way his shoulders always looked just a bit more tense than they had before last summer.

“How many finals do you have left?” Stiles asked before taking a too-large bite of his burrito. Scott scooped up his own filling with a chip.

“Just one. I had projects in all my other classes and I finished most of those over Thanksgiving break.”

“Overachiever,” Stiles grinned, pushing his feet between Scott’s.

“So says the double major taking eighteen hours,” Scott scoffed back, flicking a shard of tortilla chip in Stiles’ direction, missing him by a couple of inches. Definitely on purpose.

“We totally need a night out.” Stiles chewed mechanically, counting backward in his head how many weeks it had been since they’d spent time with the Hale pack, or hell, their own pack. With anyone besides themselves, really.

“Looks like we’re getting one whether we need it or not,” Scott grumped, but he smiled as Stiles squeezed a lime wedge in his direction, spitting juice and pulp all over both of their hands.

“Isaac said it should be fun, though, right? Jackson’s got some anise seed brew left from their last hang out, so you’re all taken care of. Kira and Malia will be there obviously, since it’s their sorority, and Erica and Boyd will be there…” Stiles cleared his throat before continuing. “I know you miss them, right? So this will be good. We’ll just go, and get wasted, and you guys can howl at the moon a little bit. I can rock some grunge, which you know is my specialty. It’ll be good.” He winked, taking a long draw off of his straw. “Besides, I’ll be there, so, instant party success.”

“Yeah,” Scott smiled and it reached his eyes for the first time since they’d sat down. Something tight in Stiles’ chest unclenched. “It’ll be good.”

Scott hummed happily for a minute, and then sighed. “Stiles, you really should return that-”

“No way man,” Stiles interrupted. “That scarf looks infinitely less douchey on me. I’m doing him a favor by keeping it.”

“Whatever you say, dude,” Scott rolled his eyes, but Stiles could sense the laugh underneath it, and that was good. It would be good.

* * *

 

_“Where’s Derek?” Stiles ground out, trying to look around. Not that there was much to see. The burned-out shell of the Hale house hadn’t changed much in the last four years._

_“I’m afraid Derek won’t be joining us this evening, Stiles.” Peter’s voice had that creepy-crawly quality that put even Stiles’ hackles up, and he was basically the only one of his friends_ not _distantly related to a dog._

_“How do any of the wolves even deal with you, man?” he blustered, working his hands against the knots in the rope. It burned, but the burn was good. It distracted him from the fear. The fear that, now that he was thinking about it, was threatening to choke him. No._ No. _Rope. Think about the rope. “You are so creepy that small animals and children probably run from you on sight, don’t they?”_

_“Maybe you should have run.” Peter crouched down in his space, filling his field of vision. He ran one clawed finger down the side of Stiles’ face, following him as he jerked away. Stiles could feel the skin opening, the hot, sick pain of it, but he couldn’t think about it. Couldn’t let himself. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you not to go into the woods alone?”_

_“Didn’t anybody ever tell you that the Little Red jokes are fucking tired?”_

_“You know, part of me wishes I’d bitten you that day in the parking garage. You being a beta would have messed up the plan of action for tonight, but it would be worth it to see you grovel for your Alpha.”_

_“Even if you’d turned me, you wouldn’t get to see that.” Stiles steeled himself, eyes wide open as they took in Peter’s deranged expression. Peter grabbed him by the jaw, claws digging in, and pulled his face close as he spoke._

_“You don’t think I could make you beg, boy?”_

_“Even if you could,” Stiles said, every work of his jaw in Peter’s hand a line of fire in his chest, “Scott’s not here. And Scott has_ always _been my Alpha.”_


	3. Chapter 3

The afternoon seemed to drag on. Scott sat slumped on the futon in the living room, half-heartedly making study notecards for History 201. Stiles moved around him, pacing and listening to a recorded psychology lecture via headphones at the same time. They’d changed as soon as they got home, replacing jeans with sweats and warding off the chill of the day with coffee, but Scott still felt unnaturally cool.

“Is it cold to you?” he asked, exaggerating the words so that Stiles could read his lips.

“Nah man,” Stiles’ voice was too loud and Scott winced. “Sorry, shit, sorry-” he scrambled to pause his lecture, pulled off the headphones. “I got cold earlier but I, ah, partook? And that generally warms you up.” He smiled a bit shamefacedly before brightening and tugging off his flannel shirt. “Take this, and I’ll go pack a bowl? Isaac got me some of the good stuff, so… you down?”

Scott caught the shirt with a smile and nodded as he slid it on, fabric still warm from Stiles’ skin.

“Sounds good, bro.”

He waited until Stiles was out of the room to drag the soft flannel against his face. He let himself enjoy it, working his nose into the collar, drowning himself in his best friend’s scent. Every second was precious;  it took all of his supernatural strength to pull the shirt on over his arms, wearing it backward so at least the concentrated scent of Stiles’ nape wouldn’t be far from his nose. He settled just before Stiles returned with a little glass pipe and a lighter, playing absently with the cuffed sleeves and hoping desperately that his face wasn’t flushed.

“The mullein makes it a bit skunkier than usual,” Stiles flailed apologetically before throwing open their one large window. They sat together in the square of soft winter sunlight painted on the floor and Stiles offered Scott the first hit.

Scott wasn’t sure he’d ever quite grow accustomed to the harsh burn of smoke in his lungs, but it helped with Stiles’ anxiety, and smoking with him felt like… well, it felt like something they _should_ do together, best friends and... brothers.

Of course, watching milky purple smoke pour out of Stiles’ mouth as he exhaled was not exactly inspiring _fraternal_ feelings.

Scott’s back hit the floor before he realized he’d laid down. _Gotta stop thinking about him_ , he thought furiously, trying to hold onto the sentiment as it floated away in a mellow cloud of purple. _Can’t look at him like that. Not now._

“Pretty effective, yeah?” Stiles flopped down next to him, side pressed hot against Scott’s own.

“You could say that,” Scott drawled back, wriggling. He couldn’t tell if he was trying to get away, or to press closer. He pressed closer.

“Feeling warmer yet?” Stiles turned onto his side, pillowing his head on one bent arm and resting his hand on Scott’s belly. The touch was innocent enough, the byproduct of a thousand sleepovers and a hundred near-death experiences. Still, it sent shockwaves up Scott’s spine, made his brain white out for long moments. Stiles’ hand moved gently up and down his torso, rucking up the flannel and his t-shirt, flirting with skin-on-skin. “Don’t you normally run pretty hot?”

Scott felt his mouth open, but no sound came out. He tried again. And again. Finally, “Yeah. Normally.”

“You okay dude?” Stiles’ concerned face was all he could see. Scott smiled.

“‘Course, man. Life is good.”

He told himself to pull away, to take off Stiles’ shirt and go to his room and tamp down these feelings before Stiles noticed, before it became too obvious to ignore.

Instead, he laid there, wrapped in Stiles’ scent and floating under his hand.

* * *

 

_“Scott…” Stiles sounded so far away, his voice so quiet. “Scotty. If you can hear me, I’m sorry. I should never have come out here. I’m sorry, Scotty. I’m so sorry.”_

_Scott wanted to howl. He wanted to break something, to tear through the woods and follow that voice until he found the boy at the other end of it. He stood still and aching at the edge of the woods as he listened for it again, tried to catch Stiles’ scent. Nothing._

_“Lydia,” his hands fumbled around his phone but he held onto it, held onto his connection with the only person that could help him. “Where is he? Can you feel him? Can you tell?”_

_He could hear her crying, soft and muffled. “It smells like smoke, Scott. Old smoke. It feels like a graveyard.”_

_“That can’t… Derek said they checked the Hale house earlier looking for Peter. He can’t be there.”_

_“Check again, Scott. And hurry.” She took a deep breath and sobbed again. “Not all the smoke is old.”_

 


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles woke slowly, climbing out of sleep with effort he had not intended to expend. For several minutes he laid there in the floor, eyes closed, just listening to the soft steady sound of Scott’s breath, feeling his chest rise and fall under one hand. In his sleep, he had curled around Scott’s body, nuzzling his head onto Scott’s chest, kicking one knee up and over Scott’s legs.

“You awake, bro?” Scott’s voice was husky with sleep and washed pleasantly over Stiles’ ears.

“Decidedly not,” Stiles stretched his arms and legs, not moving from his place half on top of his friend.

“Do you think you’re going to be awake soon?” Scott laughed, and the skin of his stomach was so warm under Stiles’ hand. He couldn’t help himself; he scraped his fingernails gently over the tight line of Scott’s torso, hoping to make him laugh again. Scott squirmed. “Come on man, tickling right after a nap is the worst.”

“You’re the worst,” Stiles countered intelligently, soothing the perturbed skin with the palm of his hand.

“I am the worst,” Scott grumbled. Within seconds, Stiles was flat on his back on the floor with Scott sitting up next to him.

“Wow, yeah, you are. What’d you do that for?”

“You’re heavy.”

“You’re a fucking werewolf. Try again.” Stiles glared, as well as he was able to glare with the lingering effects of a high and that strange, gut-warm feeling that accompanied the vision of Scott, sleep disheveled and wrapped in Stiles’ clothes.

“I have to pee?” Scott asked, eyebrows up and eyes wide in that overly-earnest way that made the gut-warm feeling turn more into a groin-warm feeling and-

_Stiles, no._

“Go pee, before I take back your Best Friend bracelet,” Stiles groused, pushing himself up off the ground. He didn’t bother with not watching as Scott sprung up and sauntered into the bathroom. He’d gotten comfortable with the underlying attraction there long ago, and refused to either let it become an issue, or deny himself the pleasure of watching his best friend leave a room. What was the point of being surrounded by hotties if you never looked at them?

Outside, the sun was beginning to set. It would be hours yet before the party was in full swing, plenty of time for them to both get ready (okay, for Stiles to get ready; he took far longer to get dressed than Scott ever thought about taking, which he was fine with), have a quiet dinner together at home, maybe pre-game.

Or, he thought, taking in the slump of Scott’s shoulders and the soft expression on his face, maybe just something to distract his stressed-out buddy for a while.

“I think I can make time to own your ass in Smash Bros, if you’re down.” Stiles shrugged noncommittally before digging a couple of cans of Code Red out of the fridge. He tossed one to Scott. He pointedly did not have lascivious thoughts about _owning Scott’s ass,_ because he was a grown man with control of himself and besides, he’d already jerked off to basically every variation of that particular fantasy years ago.

Okay, he thought about it a _little_.

Especially when Scott grinned, cocked an eyebrow, and said, “You think so? I don’t know, dude. I don’t know if you’re man enough to own this ass.”

“Oh, it is fucking _on_.”

* * *

 

_“They’ll find me,” Stiles grunted, head pounding. Whatever Peter was burning in the corner smelled awful, made his eyes feel like they were going to explode. “Scott and Derek, they’ll find me and they’ll kill you. Derek_ will _. You know he will.”_

_“Why? Because you’re so_ special _to him, Stiles?” Peter laughed, and the sound grated in Stiles’ head like a knife on china. “Tell me, how much faith can you put in an Alpha who seeks_ you _as a mate?”_

_“He doesn’t seem to have any problems with it,” Stiles growled back.  “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re pretty fucking close these days. I think he’d probably tell me.”_

_“Well, he’s not stupid. Not entirely, anyway. Anyone could see you have promise as an Emissary. I can only assume my nephew thought the only way to win you over would be to do something about the lust-stink you’re always surrounded with.”_

_“Shut up,” Stiles groaned, head falling forward. His body was on fire, he was sure of it. Pain lanced up his limbs, from the spots where his hands and feet were tied to the aches in his stiff joints to the rough pressure of a pillar against his back, the floor under his ass. Everywhere his clothes dragged against his skin felt like a second degree burn. He kept his eyes closed, lest he see skin peeling away from flesh, from the heat._

_“You can’t be serious,” Peter laughed, turning his focus away from the frankly terrifying assortment of spell ingredients he’d collected. “What… Did you think he_ liked _you?” Peter was in his face again, pushing Stiles’ head up so that he’d have to look, have to see. “Did you think he wanted you? That he loved you? How many people have you known Derek to love, Stiles? How many people have you known him to keep around, once they were no longer convenient?”_

_“Well, he kept you around despite your obvious psychosis, so apparently he’s got at least a bit of a sentimental streak,” Stiles spat. His vision was starting to blacken around the edges, leaving Peter’s face the only thing he could see. He wouldn’t close his eyes again. He wouldn’t be a coward._

_“I’m family, Stiles. Always have been. Derek can try to turn over a new leaf, be the softer, kinder Alpha all the kiddies want him to be, but the fact remains that wolves are pack animals. I am one of the two people in the world that know Derek through and through. I held him the day he was born, taught him to ride a bike, taught him how to hone his power, control his shift. And what are you? Other than easy, I mean.” Peter laughed. The pain in Stiles’ head mounted, pressing out from all sides as smoke steadily filled the room._

_“It’s not like Derek missed how Deaton treated you, how he started training you before you even realized you were capable. You are an_ opportunity _, Stiles, a way to get more power, to secure the territory, to bolster the Alpha. That’s all you ever were to him, and that’s all you are to me. That’s all you are to anyone.”_

_It took much longer than it should have for Stiles to realize it wasn’t an apparition in the doorway, that the haze of pain and smoke and fear in his brain wasn’t fooling him into seeing a rescuer. Scott’s voice cut through the fog._

_“Not to me.”_

 


	5. Chapter 5

The day had been a bit cool, even for the last week of November, but the night was downright cold. Stiles stood next to him outside of the Alpha Chi Omega house, shivering in three layers and a slouchy knit cap. His glasses, thick-rimmed black frames that he’d acquired quietly some time over the course of the semester, fogged with the breath trapped in the scarf he’d wrapped tightly over his mouth and nose. _Not_ Isaac’s striped scarf, Scott noticed.

A banner over the door read in big block letters, “Alpha Chis Can’t Hardly Wait to Party With You!” Scott looked down at the tight black t-shirt tucked into his blue jeans and hesitated.

“Should I pull this out…?” he asked, gesturing to his waistband even though his hands were stuffed in the pockets of his jean jacket.

“Uh, I don’t think it’s that kind of party, Scotty,” Stiles laughed. Scott flushed immediately and shoved into Stiles with his shoulder.

“I meant my shirt, jackass.”

“Yeah, no, don’t. Tucked in is _Saved by the Bell_ chic for sure.”

“Still not sure why you got to wear what you always wear,” Scott grumbled. Underneath the layers Stiles looked like Stiles always did: plaid over a white tee, jeans and Chuck Taylors.

“Some things never go out of style, obviously.” Stiles shrugged. He pulled his mouth out of his scarf to gust hot air over his hands, but quickly sank back into its warmth. “For fuck’s sake, what are they even doing? What are _we_ even doing? The Alpha Chi is the _worst_ house for a party. It’s in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

Scott huffed a breath and took Stiles’ hands between his own, chafing them for warmth. “I think there’s going to be a bonfire. Can’t have one of those right on campus.” He smiled at Stiles’ raised eyebrows, bringing his hands close to breathe warm air on them. Stiles held them there, close to Scott’s mouth, as he worked the scarf back down off his face with his shoulder.

“Oh! Do you think there’ll be s’mores?”

“It’s about damn time,” Erica crowed, flinging the door open and startling them apart. Scott had never watched Clueless, per se, but he recognized a Cher Horowitz-inspired ensemble when he saw one. “We thought Jackson was going to send Isaac to come pull you, bodily, to this party.”

“Well, we’ve been standing on your doorstep for the Third Age of Man, so I have no idea where all this attitude is coming from,” Stiles shot back, smiling. Erica reeled him in with one well-manicured hand, body rubbing against Stiles’ with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. Scott didn’t have to be near her to smell the alcohol on her breath, but it was fine. Erica had always harbored a little thing for his best bro, and it was _fine_. “Missed me this semester, eh? Where’s Boyd?”

“He’s out back,” Erica laughed, pushing Stiles into the house. “Go find him. I know you like him better than me anyway.”

Scott followed them in quietly, grinning at the way Stiles rolled his eyes when Erica bent over in front of him to adjust her knee-high stockings.

“Quit it Reyes,” Stiles laughed. “Your boyfriend is a giant werewolf and he will murder me. Besides, you know I’m here with my one true love tonight.”

Scott’s eyes went wide with shock. For a blissful moment, he allowed himself to imagine showing up with Stiles at a party as his _date_ : holding his hand because he wanted to rather than because it was cold, sharing breath and space and kisses in front of their friends, curling around Stiles’ body in front of the bonfire and listening to him chatter about the perfection of peanut butter s’mores.  Even as his heart sped up, tripping over itself, he watched Stiles pull a small engraved flask out of his coat pocket.

“Mr. Daniels here is keeping me company, and I am not the type to abandon a date,” Stiles grinned, taking a sip. Scott shut his mouth with a click and pushed gently past the two of them to the back door.

“Everyone’s out back, right?” he kept his voice as steady as he could, knowing Erica would no doubt hear his heartbeat anyway. It was fine. As long as Stiles didn’t notice, it would be fine.

“Ah, yeah,” Erica said, confusion evident in her voice. “Just go on a… head.”

* * *

 

_“Get him out, Derek,” Scott ordered, never taking his eyes off Stiles. “You should have dealt with Peter a long time ago, and now you don’t have a choice. If he ever enters my territory again...”_

_“Don’t worry,” Derek growled from behind him. “He won’t.”_

_Scott never looked back, immediately going to his knees to free Stiles from the ropes that bound his hands and feet._

_“Scotty-” Stiles’ voice was pained but strong._

_“I’ve got you, Stiles,” Scott interrupted. He could feel himself shifting, anger overriding every impulse, but he bit it back. His anger wouldn’t fix anything, wouldn’t make the deep cuts on Stiles’ body heal over, or pull the fever from his skin. He forced his face back into its human form, shaking off the shift with monumental effort. Stiles mirrored it, shaking off something of his own._

_“Scott, listen, he’s doing a spell. He’s channeling my, I dunno, life force or something to do magic, to make himself an Alpha again. You’ve got to let me-”_

_Peter made a break for it. Scott could hear Derek hot on his heels, faster and more powerful in his Alpha form than Peter would ever be. He finished tearing through the rope, pulling Stiles’ arms forward and working his shoulders in small circles, willing the blood to flow normally again._

_“Derek will handle it,” Scott said, even though it pained him to do so. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say; Stiles jerked away from him, struggling to get the ropes off of his feet and stand on wavering legs._

_“I don’t need Derek to handle it.”_

_Scott knew that tone of voice, though why it was suddenly being pointed at him - at Derek? - was a mystery._

_“Okay, we’ll handle it then. What do we do?”_

_Stiles walked over to the corner where a circle of herbs enclosed the small fire Peter had built and scuffed through the line with his foot. Immediately a puff of blue-grey smoke wafted into the air, like the last exhale of a slumbering dragon._

_“I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure it’s handled.” Stiles shrugged and looked around, spotting a half-empty bottle of water on the bottom step of the rotting staircase. “Bring me that, would you?”_

_Once the fire was doused and the circle trampled to ashes and soot, the energy that had been animating Stiles’ limbs seemed to fade almost immediately. He slumped over, lines of pain around his eyes and his mouth, and Scott had to catch him with one arm around his waist._

_“I need to know if he did anything else,” Scott made himself say, made himself look at Stiles’ face while he said it. “We know he wasn’t all that careful with Lydia. If something else happened…”_

_Scott trailed off, chewing his lip until he felt his canines grow dangerously sharp once more. Stiles just laughed though, a hard, bitter sound._

_“No worries there, Scotty. Good ol’ Uncle Pete just wanted to ensure I knew my place in the pack, that’s all.”_

_“Your place in whose pack?” Scott felt his hackles rising again, but Stiles just swatted at him, pushing one hand ineffectually against his chest._

_“Don’t worry, buddy. Everybody knows I belong to you. We’re just gonna hang around long enough to reiterate that fact, in case anyone’s forgotten recently.”_

 


	6. Chapter 6

“Something is up, right?” Stiles asked, turning on her immediately. “Tell me I’m not crazy. Something is wrong.”

“Well, you’re totally cra-” Erica faltered and Stiles leveled her with a glare. “Okay, fine, yes, something is definitely up. I don’t know if it’s _wrong_. But something is up.”

“What is it? What do you think it is? Did he smell someone here that shouldn’t be here? Oh God. Is it Allison? Or, wait, there aren’t any Hales here, right? Ugh, _fuck_ -”

“Stiles,” Erica clamped her hands down on his shoulders, making him focus on her face. “There are no Hales here. There’s no one from Beacon Hills here at all, except Boyd and me, and your packmates. Chill out.”

Stiles breathed in deeply through his nose and out through his mouth, following the rise and dip of Erica’s head. The quick spike of anxiety left him lightheaded and wrongfooted, when really the point of this party was to be the exact opposite of that. Was wrongheaded a thing? Stiles could make that a thing.

“Derek knows you don’t want to see him, Stiles. He’s not going to, like, follow you, you know,” Erica pursed her lips, eyes roving over his face.

“Wouldn’t be the first time, E,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“That’s still the case, though, right? You don’t want to see him.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Stiles hedged, reaching for his flask once more. “It’s just that I… can’t. I cannot be around him. And also yeah I really don’t want to.”

“It’s okay babe,” Erica smiled, and hugged him. “We get it. We all get it. Hell, even Derek gets it, and Derek doesn’t get anything. But.”

“But…?”

“That doesn’t explain why Captain America just shot out of here like a bat out of hell,” her hands went to her hips. “Did you guys fight today?”

“You know Scott and me. We don’t fight. Like, ever. Ever, ever.” Stiles took another sip, indulging in the warm scorch of whiskey tingling down his throat.

“Yeah, I know,” Erica rolled her eyes. “Disgustingly In-Sync Best Friendz 4 Lyfe. So what’d you do? Anything out of the ordinary?”

“Well, he got out of class early, so we went to lunch, came back to _Chez McCinski_ and studied, smoked a bowl, took a nap, played some video games, ate dinner, he made nachos, and then we came here…” Erica nodded along before pausing, eyebrows drawn.

“Took a nap? Like… together?”

“Well, I mean…” Stiles flushed, remembering how he’d woken up wrapped in Scott and unwilling to move. “Not on purpose, necessarily, but yeah. Happens sometimes. That shit Isaac gets makes us both really tired, and you know… Scott and I, we’re cool like that. It’s not a _thing_.”

“And you’re sure about that?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, eyebrows drawn. “Scott’s not even - I mean, yeah. I’m sure. Not a thing.”

Erica hummed thoughtfully. “So you ate together. You slept together. You hung out together. And nothing seemed wrong? Nothing unusual? Did you guys see anybody else that might have upset him?”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person he talked to until we got here, unless he was in class, but that was hours ago. It was just like basically every other day,” Stiles shrugged. Erica laughed, and Stiles narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”

“So what you’re saying is, every day, you eat together, spend _all_ your time together, barely talk to anyone else, never fight, and when you fall asleep together, it’s not a _thing_ ,” Erica stated slowly, nodding her head. Stiles nodded back.

“Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Well, I’m saying you’re a moron.”

Erica turned on her frighteningly tall heels and headed for the door, leaving Stiles to gape and flail along behind her. Which was fine, Stiles had perfected his gaping-and-flailing-behind-absurdly-attractive-women technique long ago, but still. They’d been having a _conversation_. She’d called him a _moron_. This was not over.

“Why am I a moron?” He asked affrontedly as Erica swung the back door open.

“Talk to Scott, Stiles,” Erica grinned. “If anybody can give us the answer to that question, it’s him.”

* * *

 

_“Was it true?” Stiles asked haltingly, shivering, as he and Scott stood outside the ruins of the Hale house. Derek stood in front of them, away from them, blood on his shirt, jeans torn and face still holding that wild hurt that said he’d done what needed to be done. He couldn’t be sure that Peter was dead, but he was gone, and the look in Derek’s eyes said he wouldn’t be coming back._

_The spell had been easy enough for him to counteract; stomp on everything in Peter’s little corner of evil, dump water all over the bit of it that had been on fire, and carefully, unabashedly, cut the little webs of power that Stiles had been allowing to grow, connecting himself to Derek, Peter, the rest of their pack. This, though. This was hard._

_“I don’t-”_

_“Don’t lie to me Derek. You and Scott were here when he did his big villainous monologue. You know what he said.”_

_“I never thought of you as just an opportunity, Stiles,” Derek’s voice was quiet, a bit desperate, and he reached out like he was going to touch, to hold, maybe. Stiles jerked away, stumbling against Scott’s side. “You have to know I care for you... deeply, and I-”_

_“Not_ just, _maybe. But an opportunity just the same. You wanted me to be your emissary.”_

_“I wanted you in my pack. I wanted all of you in my pack, you, Scott, the girls too, even Allison. I wanted us to be-”_

_“You knew if you got me, you’d get him. You’d get Scott, and the rest would follow,” Stiles’ voice sounded strange to his own ears. Deadened, somehow, by the insistent ringing that hadn’t stopped yet. “You’d have your powerful pack of betas, a kitsune, a werecoyote, a banshee, a hunter, a True Alpha, and an emissary. No one would fuck with you. No one could.”_

_“That wasn’t… It wasn’t the point, Stiles.” He could hear Derek struggling, feel the frustration rolling off of him. It didn’t matter.  Next to him, Scott stood stiff and silent, strong enough to lean on as Stiles said his piece._

_“It may not have been the point, but it was a consideration.” Derek flinched. “Tell me. Don’t lie to me. Tell me that none of that factored into you wanting me.”_

_If he was a werewolf, he would be able to hear Derek’s heartbeat, to see the intricacies of his facial expression as he carefully formed the words in his head, smell the resigned fatigue rolling off of him. Stiles was not a werewolf. He didn’t need those things to know._

_“Stay away from me,” his voice was soft, but resolute._

_“For how long?” A broken-off whine sounded from Derek’s direction, but Stiles ignored it. He had to, to keep himself from breaking too._

_“For now. Maybe forever. I’ll let you know.” He sank into Scott’s grip, letting his best friend wrap his arms around his body. It hurt, everything hurt, but this knowing hurt the most. He held back the panic, though, held onto the sobs until he felt Scott’s hands in his hair, on his scratched up face. He flinched as he watched black webs skate up Scott’s skin, but he didn’t pull away._

_“What do you need?” Scott’s eyes were wide and a little wild as he drew away what pain he could. Stiles should have felt something about that, he was sure, but all he felt was cold._

_“Scott, Scotty, take me home… Please just take me home.”_

_“Of course,” Scott said, gentle and smiling. His mouth curved down as Derek made one last aborted attempt to reach out, to put his hands on Stiles’ body where they had belonged for months. His eyes stayed brown, though, and the fingers that gripped Stiles, that pulled him into an easy carry, were completely human. Harmless. Stiles snuggled into Scott’s neck, arms around his shoulders, and let the events of the evening wash over him in their terrifying, depressing enormity._

_“Never again,” he said, soft, trying to stall the sobs he knew would tumble out soon._

_“What?”_

_“Scott, you have to promise. Never let me fall in love with a werewolf again.”_

_“Okay, buddy. I promise.”_


	7. Chapter 7

Scott took a deep breath of the cold night air and settled himself. His heart rate slowed as he walked the little garden path into the clearing behind the Alpha Chi house, heading for the sharp downhill slide where party noises could already be heard. He pressed his fingers into his fists and counted to ten. He didn’t listen back for Stiles’ heartbeat, or to hear Erica’s explanation. Morbid curiosity was Stiles’ thing, not his.

It wasn’t as if Stiles had meant to hurt him. Stiles wouldn’t - even when Scott was a complete idiot, Stiles never hurt him on purpose, not without a point. He didn’t know how Scott felt, couldn’t understand the way Scott’s heart had ached at the soft, broken sound of his voice that July night, how he’d realized so suddenly and earth-shatteringly that Stiles was _his_ , that he was _in love_. Stiles wasn’t being cruel. He just didn’t know.

Couldn’t know.

“Scott!” Isaac’s voice broke through his reverie and he flashed his beta a smile, as bright as he could force it. “You came.”

“‘Course I came. Wanted to be with my bros!” Scott hoped he sounded suitably cheerful.

“Uh. You okay?” Welp. Obviously he did not.

“Yeah, man, I’m fine. I’m just… it’s not really anything. I just need a beer or something.”

“Stiles, huh?”

Scott’s head turned so quickly his neck ached. “What do you mean, _Stiles_?”

“Sounds like he’s freaking out in there. You’re bummed, he’s freaking out… obvious. You had a fight or something,” Isaac shrugged like that made any sense at all.

“What’s he freaking out about?” Scott could feel his voice climbing higher with anxiety, but he couldn’t help it. Should he go back in? Stiles could be having a panic attack. Maybe they should go home. Maybe Erica said something and Stiles didn’t want to see her. Maybe Erica said something and Stiles wouldn’t want to see _him_. Maybe-

“You guys are sleeping together?” Isaac grinned and held up a fist, ready to bump. “Go on, bro. Knew you’d hit that eventually. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“He doesn’t mean like- why is he even talking about - it was just a nap, okay? We got high and passed out. Nothing… else.”

“That’s why you smell like an evergreen, huh?” Isaac brought his hand down to rest on Scott’s shoulder and then propelled him, bodily, toward the clearing.

“...I have no clue what you mean, dude.”

“ _Pining_ , man,” Isaac rolled his eyes. “You’re pining, over Stilinski of all people, and it smells.” Scott groaned. Between Erica and Isaac, everyone would know before the end of the night. Neither of them could keep a secret if their lives depended on it.

“Please,” he tried anyway, “please whatever you do, do not say anything to Stiles. Please. He can’t know.”

Isaac quirked an eyebrow at him, screwed his mouth up in a frown.

“You want to tell me why?”

“He can’t know, Isaac. It’ll be okay, as long as he doesn’t know.”

“If he hasn’t figured it out yet, you’re probably safe,” Isaac pushed him toward the crowd. “In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re obvious as fuck. Pretty sure Jackson thinks you guys have been boning since high school. But don’t worry. I’ll be your wingman tonight. Throw him off the scent, if you want. Maybe find you someone else to go home with, take your mind off things.” A cold cup was pressed into Scott’s hand, and the lilt of collective voices at the bottom of the hill called out to him, drawing him in.

“I don’t need a wingman. Or, um, anyone else,” Scott flushed. “I just want everything to be… you know… normal. Just as normal as it can be. For Stiles.”

After a long, searching look, Isaac nodded and turned away. He guided Scott through the crowd, finding Jackson with an unnerving amount of ease. Not that Jackson was difficult to find; he held court in a bright red Adidas track suit, obviously purchased especially for the occasion, which perfectly contrasted with Isaac’s matching blue version. The two fistbumped as they met, and Jackson waved off a couple of brothers that Scott sort of halfway recognized. Two years in Europe had been good to Jackson. He smiled more now, wasn’t quite as tense as he used to be.

“Hey loser, what took so fucking long?”

Some things didn’t change.

“Sorry, sorry, Erica held us up back at the house,” Scott smiled. “Is this everyone? Where’s Danny?”

“He said he had a study guide to finish, but I think he just didn’t want to put his costume on. He’ll be here later,” Jackson said easily, holding his cup up to toast.

“A study guide? Since when does Danny need to study?” Scott laughed, touching the rim of his own cup to Jackson’s.

“To _sell_ , moron. How do you think he funds that designer habit Lydia foisted on him? Cheers.”

Scott took a drink. The beer Jackson brewed didn’t taste especially good, not like the rich, heady taste of real beer, but real beer wouldn’t get him drunk. And Scott really wanted to get drunk. Still, he made a face as it frothed over his tongue, the tingling wake of anise seed oil filling his senses as it slid down his throat.

“You’re such a puss,” Jackson rolled his eyes. From his left, a loud, “HEY!” sounded, and a flailing limb smacked into Jackson’s chest.

“Watch your mouth, dirtbag,” Malia grumbled, brilliant blue eyes flashing. Kira grabbed her arm and tugged her back, shooting Scott a smile.

“Sorry,” Jackson corrected, rubbing his chest with one hand. “You’re such a fucking wimp. Better?” He shot a dark look at Malia, but a quick growl from her direction sent him scrambling toward Scott again. “You’re absolutely sure she’s not feral?”

“Honestly?” Scott grinned at her, nodded at Kira. “No. But I’m not sure about you either. Bottoms up!” Scott sloshed his cup against Jackson’s with a steady hand and tipped it back once more, carefully avoiding the grimace he could feel trying to paint itself over his face.

“Scotty, bro, you took off-” Stiles’ hand on his lower back was like a brand, and Scott twisted quickly away from it, knocking his shoulder into Jackson as he stumbled to the side. “Whoa. Buddy. Too much brew there, homes?” Stiles’ eyebrows furrowed dramatically, squishing up his whole face, and Scott ached to smooth them out, run his hand over that skin, press his thumb to the middle of Stiles’ forehead and drag it down his sweet, pert nose-

“Yeah. Maybe,” he cut off his own line of thinking, but not quickly enough. He could feel eyes all over him: Jackson, Malia, Kira, Isaac, all watching him intently. A snort of laughter sounded from behind him, and Scott mentally added Erica to the list. His shoulders slumped. Stiles’ face did something strange, twisted up on itself for half a second, before a broad, guileless smile stretched across it.

“Ayyyyye, that means I need to catch up then, right dude? Boyd!” he yelled toward the other side of the clearing, past the unlit fire pit. Light from a few paper lanterns and the waxing moon overhead illuminated the woodpile, a pyramid of sticks and logs. “Beer me, bro!”

“Beer yourself,” Boyd’s voice cut through the crowd, heavy with affection. Still, moments later a large hand thrust a silver can into Stiles’ face. Boyd lifted Stiles easily off the ground with one giant arm wrapped around his ribs, pulling Stiles’ back against his chest. Stiles laughed, spitting beer down his front.

“Boyd, bro, Boyd, put me down. Put me down!” Stiles kicked his feet ineffectively, and Scott’s gut curled and warmed watching that unselfconscious joy on his friend’s face. The newsboy cap Boyd had been wearing dropped to the ground just before Stiles did, and Stiles’ knees went out from under him, sending him sprawling forward into Scott’s chest. Scott caught him instinctively, spilling beer and laughter and warmth and Stiles was there in his arms, wide eyed and breath hot on Scott’s face and--

“Aw, honeybunch, that wasn’t nice at all,” Erica grinned, pulling Stiles out of Scott’s grip and settling him back on his feet. She winked - completely without subtlety - in Scott’s direction before absently pretending to dust Stiles off, brushing her hands all over him. Scott nearly bit through his tongue trying not to flash his Alpha eyes at her. Jackson replaced Scott’s empty cup with a full one before settling his hands on Scott’s shoulders and rubbing them like he was prepping a boxer for the ring.

“They sure do like him don’t they, Alpha?” Jackson whispered into his ear, too quietly for Stiles to hear over his frantic attempt to escape Erica’s brushing-cum-tickling, but plenty loud for every supe at the party to listen in. Scott jerked away but Jackson held fast, wrapping his arms snugly around Scott’s chest. “Probably that smell, right?” Scott could actually _hear_ him grinning, the bastard. “He smells _so_ frustrated. Like you could just blow on him and he’d-”

“Enough,” Scott growled, flaring red eyes in Jackson’s direction. The grip on his chest instantly eased and he pulled away, looking for an escape route. Outside their little group of friends, the party was really getting started, Boyz II Men blaring and people talking and drinking in mixed groups of three, seven, twelve. Nearby, a few of his fraternity brothers - Mark? One of them was definitely a Mark. And a Chad, probably - began prepping the fire pit for lighting, dousing the wood in accelerant that stung his eyes and nose.

“Scott?” Kira’s voice was small and clear like a bell, cutting through the noise of the crowd. He followed it to her hands, clasping gently around his elbow, and allowed her to pull him to a far corner, away from Jackson, Stiles and the rest. Malia followed, and he tried not to be charmed by the low-level growl she kept up, warning away the others. Kira’s long sunflower-printed dress and crocheted cardigan contrasted sharply with Malia’s bright green crop top and purple leggings, but when they slid into one another’s space it looked right anyway.

The frown on Kira’s face, though, did not look right. “That was unkind. He shouldn’t have-”

“It’s fine,” Scott smiled, taking another drink of his beer. His head felt strangely muffled. He sank easily into the warm, cotton-y cloak of his buzz, detaching his feelings and desires from himself, even if only momentarily. “Jackson has every right. He knows I need to get over it, and stuff like that… it helps remind me how completely… inappropriate and-”

“Inappropriate?” Malia butted in, grabbing Scott by the bicep and pulling him around. “How?”

Scott floundered.

* * *

 

_“How do you feel?” Scott asked for what felt like the fiftieth time. Stiles rubbed a clean blue towel over his hair, grabbed a shirt out of his chest of drawers. There were bandages on his face and neck, where Peter had split the skin. His wrists and ankles were chafed red and raw from the ropes, and Scott wanted to lick them, to taste the places where Stiles was vulnerable and hurting. To kiss them better._

_“Like I was dudenapped, tied up, used as a magical punching bag, then used as an emotional punching bag, and then had all my actual pain leached out by my frankly amazing best friend, leaving me fucking exhausted and sort of…” He flailed._

_“Sort of...?”_

_“Empty.” Stiles climbed into his bed, Green Lantern boxers and hideously clashing orange t-shirt disappearing under soft gray sheets, his blue duvet, the crocheted blanket Scott’s_ Abuela _Delgado had made for Stiles’ eleventh birthday. Scott sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, and Stiles scooted over, patting the soft surface._

_“I can’t take empty,” Scott tried to apologize, to explain. “It’s not… that’s not a feeling.”_

_“It’s a lack,” Stiles agreed, nodding. “S’okay. I don’t want you to take it. I need to remember this.” Stiles scrubbed a hand through his hair, ran his palm over his face. “In case he comes back, you know?”_

_"Peter?” Scott asked, eyebrows high. He hadn’t heard Peter in the preserve after Derek had returned, had seen enough blood on Derek’s clothes that he hadn’t expected to. But if Stiles thought he was still out there, then -_

_“No. Not him.” Stiles shuffled over, miserable, and patted the bed again. “Derek.”_

_“Oh. I didn’t…” Scott trailed off, and then started again, forcing the words through his throat, out of his mouth. “I hadn’t realized you... loved him. I didn’t think it was that serious.”_

_“I didn’t either,” Stiles shrugged, a soft, sad smile on his face. “And it wasn’t… really. Only three months? Mostly it was just sex and hanging out, which… yeah. It wasn’t serious. But I was. Like I always, stupidly, am.”_

_“Hey, it’s not stupid,” Scott reached out, settling a hand on Stiles’ chest. He was warm through the fabric, and Scott refused to let himself imagine even for a moment that he’d been invited here under different circumstances, that the heartbeat under his hand was uneven for different reasons altogether. “Everybody knows you’re not really casual.”_

_“Are either of us?” Stiles laughed. Scott could feel himself hovering there on the edge of something, so close. He pulled back, pulled his hand back to his lap and started to stand. Stiles grabbed his wrist. “Stay?”_

_“If you want me to.” Scott nodded automatically as Stiles opened the blanket. He’d traded his own torn, dirty clothing for a set of pajamas he kept at Stiles’ house over an hour ago, and it was simple, familiar, to climb into the small bed next to his friend. Just friends. Just best friends._

_“‘Course I want you to,” Stiles grinned, turning on his side to face Scott. “How’m I supposed to get over my heartbreak here if my Alpha takes off? I need you to stay and protect my virtue. Possibly from myself.” Scott laughed and rolled his eyes._

_“You’re the only person I know who actually feels safer with a werewolf in his bed.”_

_“If I’m safe with anybody, it’s you.” Stiles grabbed his hand for just a moment, squeezed it tight before letting go._

_“You sure about that?” Scott growled playfully to hide the heartache in his eyes._ You’re not safe with me, Stiles. Not when I feel like this. Not when I want you so badly.

_Stiles shook his head, smiling. “Never safer than when I’m with you. I don’t care what you are. You’ve always been my best friend. Always just be Scott to me.”_

_Stiles gave an exaggerated yawn and turned over before Scott could respond. It was fine. It was better that way._

_Best friends._

_Just Scott._

 


	8. Chapter 8

“Okay you bunch of mutants, all of you know something I don’t know and you’re going to tell me right now or I’m going to box you all in with mountain ash. After I get Jackson drunk.” Boyd’s face was eloquent in its terror at that idea, but it still took too long for anyone to speak up. Stiles glared. The wolves sat uncomfortably still, as if the very movement of their lungs would clue Stiles in to _the thing that they were obviously not going to fucking tell him_.

“Guyssssss,” Stiles felt himself whining as he pulled away from Erica. “What is going on? What’s wrong with Scott? Why is Erica touching me so much?” He pouted in her direction, then Boyd’s. “It’s weird. Weirder than normal werewolf too-much-touching.”

“She’s being a douche,” Boyd said simply. He turned to his girlfriend of four years and narrowed his eyes. “You’re being a douche.”

“Scott deserves it for being such a pansy,” Erica smiled, smug. She sank back against Boyd’s chest, letting him envelop her with strong arms, and stuck her tongue out at Isaac. “Even Eurotrash over there thinks so, don’t you boys?”

Stiles’ eyes darted between Boyd and Erica on his left and Isaac and Jackson on his right. He didn’t seek out Scott, in the far corner of the clearing with Kira and Malia. He didn’t have to; he’d had an awareness of Scott for so long that it barely even registered anymore.

“Scott’s a bit… shortsighted.” Isaac nodded, running his tongue over his teeth. “Doesn’t give us a right to get involved. Doesn’t give anybody a right to manhandle Stiles, either, especially...considering.”

“Technically I think it’s ladyhandling when Erica does it. And that’s not important. What’s important is - wait. _Considering._ Considering what?”

“Think about it, asshole,” Jackson rolled his eyes and took a large swig out of a pretentiously stereotypical red cup made of hard, dishwasher-safe plastic. A large white _J.M.W._ was emblazoned on the side.

“What do you think I’m fucking doing?” Stiles took an angry gulp of his own beer, sputtered and choked on it, and then followed it with a much more gentle sip. He was not even going to dignify that whole thing with a comment. _Moving right along_. “I’m saying to you, right now, that all of you know something I don’t because of some stupid werewolf mojo that I don’t have and-”

“Then use your goddamned brain, Stilinski!” Jackson growled. Isaac clapped a hand over Jackson’s chest and he instantly calmed, control aided by a packmate, an equal. “Scott’s our Alpha, and he is obviously uncomfortable enough to not say anything about it. But no one would _have_ to say anything if you just opened your eyes. It is literally right there in front of your stupid, slack-jawed face.”

“What Jackson means to say is,” Isaac gave him a reproving look before settling an arm around Stiles’ shoulders, “that we really shouldn’t tell you what Scott wants. But if you figure it out, we can help you find a way to give it to him.”

Stiles felt his face heat up as his brain assaulted him with various ways he could give _it_ to Scott: a blowjob in their little kitchen, handjobs in the shower, riding him in the sunny spot on the carpet under the window…

“Ahem.”

He snapped back to attention. The wolves all looked at him with varying degrees of disgust and discomfort on their faces. Well, everyone but Erica. She just grinned, one eyebrow raised.

“Sorry, sorry! Forgot about the whole… arousal...smelling thing,” Stiles covered his hot-flushed face with his hands. “It’s been a long fucking time, okay? Literally everything makes me think of sex.”

“He’s our Alpha, man,” Isaac complained, rolling his eyes in Erica’s direction. “This is like our mom wanting to bone our dad.”

“Not my Alpha,” Erica winked.

“Your mom?!” Stiles felt affronted. He hoped he looked affronted. There was fucking affront happening.

“Yes. If our mom was terrible at mothering, along with being an idiot who didn’t realize our dad was fucking in love with her-” Jackson stopped, paled, and immediately threw back the rest of his beer. Isaac sighed. Boyd groaned. Even Erica seemed suddenly tense.

“Wait. Wait.” Stiles blinked. His chest went tight, like he couldn’t breathe for a moment, and a laugh bubbled up without his permission. “Scott?”

“Smooth, jackass,” Erica hissed. Isaac rubbed at Stiles’ shoulders, spreading pack scent and soothing at the same time.

“What do you mean, ‘in love with’ me?” Stiles demanded, sloshing beer over his hand.

“It’s a little self-explanatory.” Boyd shrugged, never pulling his arms from around Erica.

“No, that can’t possibly be correct. Because if Scott said he was in love with me, that’d be one thing, but if Jackson says it, it probably means Scott’s secretly planning my death or something. Jackson cannot be trusted to even relay messages vaguely related to matters of the heart. Sorry bro.”

“Not your bro,” Jackson growled. “And I might not have always been the best beta, but I wouldn’t fuck Scott over by lying to you about something like that. He’s an idiot, but he’s still my Alpha.”

Stiles took a long drag off of his beer and winced at the taste, not quite cold enough even in the brisk night air. Around him, the betas waited with the air of anticipation that usually only came from impending fucking doom, and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Could someone please just say something?” Stiles whined. “Someone who isn’t me, I mean. Preferably someone who is going to make any kind of sense.”

“Is it weird?” Boyd asked, voice slow and careful. “Because you didn’t know he was gay, I mean.”

“Boyd!” Erica elbowed him none-too-gently and Boyd huffed. “Scott’s not gay. He dated Allison and Kira, and I’m pretty certain they aren’t dudes.”  
Stiles stopped, mouth falling open slightly. It was like ice water had been dumped over his head, dousing the little spark of warmth and hope that had blossomed in his stomach with brutal efficiency. Within seconds Isaac and Jackson each had a hand on his shoulders.

“No, he’s right. Scott’s not gay. Or bi. He’d - he’d tell us that, right? He’d say something. Scott’s straight. Scott’s _straight_.” He turned toward Jackson, face pinched. “That was fucked up, even for you.”

“Does that look like a joke?” Isaac manhandled him around to face Scott. Kira and Malia were obviously comforting Scott, hands patting at him hesitantly as he shook his head, shoulders slumped.

“But he’s - he’s never even -”

“Never?” Isaac asked, eyebrows high. “ _Never_. Really? Scott keeps secrets better than I’d thought.”

“Wait,” Erica laughed. “ _You_?”

“I mean… it was only once?” Isaac blushed hot and grinned at the ground, rubbing the back of his neck. “Obviously it didn’t _go_ anywhere. But.”

“No,” Stiles gaped. “No. No no no. You are not telling me that my best friend, my - my - Scott. _My_ Scott. Slept with _you_. And didn’t _tell me_ about it.”

“I asked him not to.” Isaac scuffed his shoe against the ground. “We’d just found out Allison and Lydia were together. You were with Derek, and it was… I mean, I wouldn’t call it _sleeping_ together, but we did… help each other out. Once. Okay, twice. But then he told me we couldn’t again, because he’s my Alpha and he had feelings for someone else, and he felt wrong about it.”

“Of course he did. And you made him promise not to tell because…?”

“If you’d hooked up with a guy like Scott and he told you it couldn’t happen again, would you want people to know?” Isaac’s mouth turned in a grim little smile. “I’m not hung up on him or anything. I just didn’t want to be another failed romance for Scott McCall.”

“Yeah, well, who does?” Stiles sighed, glancing hurriedly at the trio of whispering supes in the garden corner.

“Is that something you think will happen?” Jackson spoke up, tilting his chin toward Scott. It was vaguely threatening, even with the ridiculous tracksuit on. “You planning to break his heart, Stilinski? Because best friend or not, Scott’s my Alpha, and I will personally -”

Stiles shook his head before he realized he was doing it. “No. I wouldn’t - I don’t want that to happen. Ever. To any of you but especially not to Scott. But I don’t exactly have any control over that. _Whatever’s_ wrong with Scott, he isn’t - he isn’t talking to me about it.”

“And you don’t think that’s just the tiniest bit odd?” Jackson asked, squinting at him.

Stiles felt like he was going to explode, frustration building in the back of his throat. “Of course it’s odd! It’s odd that he doesn’t go out! It’s odd that he skips parties! It’s odd that he’s better at physics than me because he hates math and yet somehow there he is getting a higher grade on that physics test last week, because all he does is study and work hard and go to his shitty job and I ask but he hasn’t said anything about it so I have to assume that he’s okay.”

“And why do you have to do that?” Erica asked, face harder than it had been all night. Stiles threw his hands up, defeated.

“Because he’s my best friend. And if he doesn’t trust me to tell me when something’s - different, or, or wrong, then there’s nothing I can do, is there? I just have to wait. I have to take care of him and I have to wait for him to say something and I have to hope that -”

Tears pricked at his eyes, surprising and sudden, and Stiles smacked them away with the back of his hand. Isaac’s hand on his shoulder gripped tighter, squeezing comfortingly in an almost-hug while maintaining as much physical distance between them as he could. Stiles snorted.

“I have to hope he’ll tell me eventually, or it will just go away. Because the alternative is that there’s something in the universe Scott thinks we can’t handle and honestly? I can’t handle that.”

* * *

 

_Stiles yawned and snuggled back into Scott’s arms, resting easily with his best friend’s heartbeat thrumming against his back. He didn’t remember them wrapping around him, twining under his head, around his waist, but it was fine. The breath on the back of his neck reminded him he wasn’t alone, and the soft snuffling noises were so reminiscent of Scott’s allergies before the bite that there was no question of who it was that held him tight.  Sleep came easily in the circle of Scott’s body, and Stiles let it come._

 


	9. Chapter 9

“So what you’re telling us is that after you rescued Stiles from Peter, he told you he could never be with a werewolf again, and this is why you describe your feelings for him as inappropriate,” Kira stated slowly and clearly, eyebrows raised just slightly.

“Yes, exactly,” Scott slumped against the manicured hedge wall that enclosed one side of the clearing, shielding it from the wooded area beyond.

“I cannot believe how dumb you all are,” Malia snorted, wrapping her arms tight around Kira’s waist. She rested her chin on Kira’s shoulder. “Can you imagine how much less happy we would be if we were this dumb?”

Kira smiled but not unkindly. “He has every reason to take Stiles at his word, Lia. It’s not as if Stiles is prone to exaggeration, sarcasm, or flights of verbal fancy.”

“Right. Usually there’s no ‘or,’ it’s all those things at once.” Scott could hear the derision rolling off of Malia, smell her frustration easily. “Alpha-” the familiar name held so much context: respect, love, honor, service, family, recognition of that wild thing that bound them all together - “you’re an idiot.”

“I know what you’re thinking, that he didn’t mean it, he was just joking like he always does, but- but guys, you didn’t see his face. I saw it. I smelled it on him. His disgust, his hurt. About what we are, what we do to each other because of what we are. And that’s-”

“You’re right,” Kira cut in quickly before Scott could really get rolling, stilling his hands in the air as he gestured toward a frighteningly similar conference happening across the clearing. He didn’t listen in, but from the tension of Stiles’ shoulders, he didn’t have to. He was going to find out, tonight probably, and everything would change, simply because Scott couldn’t control his desire. “We weren’t there. Peter hurt Stiles very badly, Derek didn’t particularly help with that, and you were the one that comforted him in the aftermath of that hurt. We didn’t see him then, but you did. And that’s important, Scott.”

Kira grasped his face between her hands, turning it to meet her eyes. They flashed orange, like they did sometimes when she felt things very keenly, and Scott was instantly wrapped in the soothing influence of _pack_ and _comfort_ and _home_.

“Of course I was there,” Scott managed, trying to fight the impulse to wrap both of them up in a hug, to just rest in the calming presence of his own personal version of betas, unbitten but still his.

“Of course you were,” Kira repeated. “Because you’re always there for him. You always have been. You always will be. When Stiles thinks of you, do you think he sees a monster? Do you think he considers you an Alpha? He’s pack, of course, but you aren’t a wolf to him, Scott. You’re his best friend. Don’t you owe it to him, and to yourself, to be honest about your feelings? Shouldn’t you give him the chance to prove you wrong?”

“What are you so afraid of?” Malia added, nuzzling into Kira’s neck. “Friends fall in love every day, Alpha. You’re not that special. It doesn’t have to be this hard.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Scott couldn’t help but look over Malia’s shoulder, toward the place where Stiles stood with Erica’s hands on him. Scott shuddered at the quick burn of anger he felt at her casual treatment of Stiles, _his Stiles_ , at the way she touched him and flirted with him and marked him with her scent. He tamped it down with effort, but the feeling left his stomach roiling. He thought of waking up tomorrow, Stiles hungover and passed out on the sofa as he often did when he didn’t quite make it to his bed, smelling of bonfire, beer, and Erica’s perfume. The wolf in his skin growled and whined.

“What if I’m right?” Kira smiled. “Even if I’m not, Stiles will always care for you. You’ve been his best friend for as long as you both remember. You loving him isn’t a curse. Keeping it to yourself could be.”

“I don’t - I don’t even know how to start… how do you tell someone you’ve loved all your life that now you love them different?”

“That sounds pretty romantic to me,” Malia grinned. “Of course… there are other ways you could let him know…”

“Like what?” Scott asked, immediately on guard. Kira and Malia shared a look before Malia peeled herself from Kira’s back, taking her hand.

“Leave that to us, Alpha,” Malia winked and pulled Kira along behind her, back to the rest of the pack. “Oh, and have a beer, okay? You might need it.”

Scott tried to ignore the distinct feeling of his stomach sinking.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter: mild but highly annoying bisexuality erasure.

“What do you mean the wood’s too wet?” Stiles asked, looking at Mark - no, Chad? - no, Jason, it was _Jason_ , who was somehow suffering through the cold in plaid shorts and a long-sleeved polo, and telling them all that he and another brother had to go back to the Sigma Delta house to get more wood. “You just spent half an hour dousing it in gasoline, and now you can’t get it lit?”

“Stiles, bro, calm down,” Jackson said smoothly, clapping him on the back. In an instant Jackson went from pack to Brother, taking control of the party. His collar must have popped itself, magically. “It’s cool, guys. Jason, Todd-” _okay, not Chad,_ Todd _,_ “-go grab the extra firewood from ours. In the meantime, let’s get these ladies inside before they get too cold. Wouldn’t want them getting sick!” He turned, winking, and added, “Or putting on more clothes, am I right?”

Stiles was jostled, pushed, half-carried up the path to the sorority house. Erica and Malia quickly pushed the furniture out of the way, clearing the main room for dance space. Within minutes, a familiar beat was blasting through the room, filling Stiles’ ears and guiding his flailing limbs.

_I wanna, li-li-li-lick you from yo' head to yo' toes_

_And I wanna, move from the bed down to the down to the to the flo'_

_Then I wanna, ahh ahh - you make it so good I don't wanna leave_

_But I gotta, kn-kn-kn-know what-what's your fan-ta-ta-sy_

“What is this?” Stiles groaned, bobbing his head anyway.

“Only one of the best dirty dancing songs of the late 90s,” Malia sniffed.

“You were a coyote for all of the late 90s,” he shot back. “How do you even dance to this?”

“Leave that to me,” Erica grinned, suddenly right in front of him, filling up the space. Behind him he could feel bodies pressing, recognized the soft scent of Malia’s shampoo, the one she’d favored since high school. Her hair drifted over his shoulder and Erica, in her heels, stood just about eye-level, leaving him surrounded by girl. It was a feeling Stiles was absolutely positive he would never be entirely comfortable with, even if it was pretty freaking nice.

“Is this your friend?” a high pitched squeal came from his left, and Erica was almost able to hide her wince. Almost.

“Yeah, ah, Kadie, this is Stiles, he’s a Sigma Delta,” Erica gestured grandly toward Stiles with a long sweep of her hand. “Stiles, our sister Kadie.”

Kadie, a curvy brunette with deep dimples and blindingly white teeth, looked past him toward Malia. Her blue tube top and miniskirt were tough to place, but Stiles thought there were shades of Baby Spice in the pig tails. “This is the one you dated in high school, right? Before you both figured out you were gay?”

“I’m not actu-”

“Well, sort of-”

“Oh, it’s fine!” Kadie exclaimed, winking. “I love dancing with gay guys! You don’t have to worry about them being into you! It’s way more fun!”

“I’m… there aren’t just two options you know - I’m really more of a… If you consider the Kinsey scale accur-” Stiles tried to protest, finding himself rapidly boxed in by Kadie’s group of aggressively dancy sorority sisters. “You’d think one of you would have heard of bisexuality before -”

“Shut up and dance, Stilinski,” Malia laughed in his ear, wrapping her hands around his waist and pressing up against his back. “Don’t you want this to look inviting?”

“Did you somehow forget what a fucking terrible dancer I am?” Stiles managed as Erica and Malia moved his body easily between the two of theirs. “Because I am pretty sure there is no way this is inviting to literally anyone, especially a guy who has seen me dance at literally every dance-able function ever, and laughed his ass off every time.”

“Are you saying that you don’t think,” Erica grinned, rolling her hips against him, “that your Alpha is going to be inspired to come rescue your delicious, flaily ass from a flock of pushy sorority sisters?”

“You’re trying to make him mad?” Stiles jerked his head back, almost colliding with Malia behind him. Malia grabbed his neck, turning his face toward Scott who sat quietly in a corner, eyes plastered their little knot of bodies.

“Not mad, babe,” Malia grinned, rubbing one hand over Stiles’ chest. “Jealous.”

“It’s in our nature, to mark what’s ours,” Erica continued, wrapping her arms around Stiles’ body in order to get her hands on Malia. “When we’re finished here, he won’t be able to smell you without also smelling us. It’ll make him crazy. Make him need to take you home and mark you up himself. Cover you with his scent instead.”

Images of Scott marking him up sped through Stiles’ brain. _Scott, pushing him up against the wall, stripping him out of clothes that smell like someone else. Scott pulling him into the shower, washing the touch of everyone who isn’t him off of Stiles’ skin. Scott’s face as he rubs his naked torso against Stiles’, grinds their hips together, runs his hands through Stiles’ hair. Laying down in Scott’s bed, surrounded by the smell of his best friend, rubbing bare skin all over soft, worn jersey sheets._

“Exactly,” Malia whispered, breaking into his thoughts. “Do you remember when I used to get so worked up after pack nights?”

“Worked up, huh? I thought people still referred to that as ‘terrifyingly horny,’” Stiles laughed, eyebrows raised.

“So you do remember.”

“Do you mean, while you and I were-”

“No, after. But before Kira and I got together, when she was still with Scott.” Malia spun Stiles around and pressed her cheek to his, still dancing. The intimacy of the touch wasn’t unusual; even after they’d called it quits on their short-lived romantic relationship, they’d often been a point of comfort for one another, sharing space and skin and breath in an effort to ward off nightmares, anxiety, loneliness. He relaxed into her touch easily, let the steady feeling of her body against his ease his mind for a moment. “She always smelled like him. Hell, everyone always smelled like him. He’s Alpha. But she smelled like his skin, and his mouth, and sex, and it made me…” Malia pulled away, shooting a mischievous look in Scott’s direction before she finished, her lips brushing Stiles’ ear, “It made me want her more.”

“And you think this is going to make Scott want me more?” Stiles raised an eyebrow. He barely noticed when the song changed, just went easily along with the rhythm set by Erica and Malia, valiantly ignored the groping hands of Kadie’s friends. “To hear Jackson talk, he’s ready to propose any day now as it is, so I kind of don’t think this is your best bet.”

Stiles didn’t mention that Jackson was obviously a moron, and the only effect Stiles was having on Scott’s mood was obviously to upset him.

“I’m not sure Scott could want you more than he already does. But maybe it will inspire him to get over himself and say something?” Erica’s hands moved under the hem of his shirt, rucking it up a bit and exposing the pale flesh of his belly. She scratched her nails down it, gently, sent him shivering. He closed his eyes for just a moment, trying to control the desire to push back, to rut against one of them or the other, to choose some random partygoer and relieve this aching want that started churning in his gut the instant Jackson said Scott wanted him.

_What about up in the candy sto' that chocolate chocolate make it melt_

_Whips and chains, handcuffs, smack a little booty up with my belt_

_Scream help play my game; dracula man I'll get my fangs_

_Horseback and I'll get my reins, school teacher let me get my grades_

“Shit!” Erica cursed behind him, and Stiles’ eyelids flew open just in time to see Scott disappear out the front door. Stiles moved to go after him, but stopped when Malia grabbed his bicep, shaking her head. He turned back to the masterminds of this particular plan and stared them down. Malia cringed. Erica looked vaguely shamed, which was probably the best he could hope for.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go out there yet,” Malia bit her lip. “He seems… worked up. He might react badly.”

“I brought him out tonight to help get him over this shitty mood he’s been in,” Stiles seethed. “And now he feels even worse than he did before. I’m just - I’m going to go get him, take him home. Obviously this party was not my most brilliant plan.”

“No!” Malia broke in, eyes wide. “You can’t, okay? Just trust me on this, Stiles. He needs to be here a while longer, okay?”

“Trust you. After that horrifyingly bad idea?” Stiles cocked an eyebrow. The pained expression on her face intensified for a moment before she reached up to pull him into a hug.

“Please just trust me. He has some things - and, uh… it will be better if you’re just patient and stick around a while. Okay?”

“He told you something, didn’t he? Something he hasn’t told me.” Even though he was expecting it, the knowledge still felt like a punch to the gut. He knew she wouldn’t tell him, but the way Malia nuzzled into his shoulder in that comforting way she did sometimes when she was lonely or scared or she’d had a fight with Kira said more than words anyway.

“You know I want you to be happy, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Stiles sighed, petted her hair once, and then stepped back. “That doesn’t mean I think you know what you’re talking about, _at all_. I don’t know that any of you has any idea what Scott wants, and I would have thought I’d be the foremost expert on that particular subject before tonight, but apparently I’m not. Which… okay. It bothers me.”

“I get that,” Malia nodded, eyes downcast. “I know it’s… not what you’re used to. But it’ll be worth it, if you wait for him?”

Stiles sighed and bopped her gently on the chin.

“He told you he’d talk to me about it?”

Malia nodded, though her eyes looked a bit shifty as she glanced toward the door. Still, that was probably as good as he was going to get, for now.

“Fine. I’ll be patient. For me. Not like, normal person levels of patience. I don’t have enough adderall for that.” Stiles ran a frustrated hand through his hair, regretting it the instant he encountered the gelled strands. “Great. Wonderful work, ladies. I need another fucking beer.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter: An original character calls Malia a lesbophobic slur.

“They were trying to help, really,” Boyd’s words did nothing to quiet the red-hot anger Scott was attempting to choke down, standing there on the big, plantation-style front porch of the Alpha Chi house.

“Did you actually fucking look at them, Boyd, or are you just going to take Erica’s word for it? Because I am a hundred percent positive that little display was not for me. It was for her. And Malia - I don’t even know about Malia. I thought she was completely over Stiles - I mean, she and Kira -”

“They were giving you an opportunity, McCall,” Jackson interrupted, pointedly, gesturing with a half-full homebrew bottle of dark green glass. “You, obviously, blew it. But I think we all knew that was going to happen.”

“An opportunity?!” Scott felt himself getting shrieky but he couldn’t stop. “An opportunity to do WHAT? Watch the guy I’m crazy about have fully clothed sex in front of forty random strangers?”

“There were way more than forty people in there Scotty-”

“Don’t you dare cal-”

“Hey!” Boyd interrupted, shoving his way in between Scott and Jackson’s bowed bodies. His hand was heavy on Scott’s shoulder and the Alpha leaned into it, trying to drag himself back to control. Jackson smirked and rolled his eyes, but the instant Scott’s flashed red he blanched, baring the side of his neck in submission. Scott forced himself to relax.

“Sorry, Jackson. That was... unnecessary. I’m sorry.”

“No problem, Alpha,” Jackson said quietly, keeping his face turned away from Scott. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know you’re... concerned.”

“Jackson’s right, though,” Boyd broke in, squeezing Scott’s shoulder gently. “Strange as it looked, I do think they were trying to give you a chance.”

“How?” Scott ground out, trying to keep his body loose, finding himself in the nearness of his pack, his own heartbeat, the memory of his mother’s voice: _be your own anchor_.

“Erica, Malia… they’re showy. They like big displays, right? Remember how Erica made me wear an old letterman sweater to prom so we could act out the last scene from _Grease_ as a group? And Malia-”

Scott choked on a laugh. “Malia’s impromptu post-game make out session with our star goalie is probably _still_ fueling the wank-banks of at least half of the lacrosse team.”

“Kira never stood a chance, honestly. When that girl decides what she wants, she takes it, which is obviously something I respect,” Boyd grinned, eyes traveling back to the door. “Not really your way, though, is it McCall?”

Scott shook his head, feeling a flush heat his cheeks. “No. I’m not - I don’t -” he sighed. “I don’t.”

“In your head, when you picture telling him, what happens?” Boyd’s voice was low and coaxing, gentle in the cool air.

“You mean the times he doesn’t punch me?” Scott tried to grin. Jackson rolled his eyes, but Scott could see him physically holding back the scoff. He appreciated it. Sort of. “Ah. I guess… I’ve never been that great with words, so…”

“Obvious,” Jackson interrupted, more gently than Scott had expected. “You kiss him.”

“Well. I mean, that would be great, but-”

“So that’s what we do. We create a situation where you can kiss. Something safe, so that you can tell if he’s into it, or if he’s totally freaking out. Though, I gotta be honest with you Scott, I’m pretty sure he’ll be-”

“Don’t. Just… don’t tell me. Even if he already knows, I don’t want to know.” Scott shook his head to clear it before continuing. “He’s too good at lying to wolves for any of you to know for sure how he feels. And I know you probably think you have him all figured out, but I know Stiles better than anyone. There are things about him you don’t know. Things that might make this entire thing useless. So, whatever you’re planning, just… keep it simple, okay? Don’t get invested in this. It’s pretty hopeless, no matter what Kira thinks.”

Boyd and Jackson met one another’s eyes before Boyd plucked the bottle out of Jackson’s hand and took a long drink.

“Don’t worry, McCall. What I have in mind is about as simple as it gets.”

 

“Spin the bottle, Vern? Really? Are we twelve?” Mark - _no_ , Mike, it was definitely Mike, whined. Jackson tightened his arms around the waists of two gorgeous Alpha Chi girls he’d magicked up from somewhere.

“Not confident in your macking skills, Matt?” Jackson smarmed, winking at the girl on his left. Fine. Definitely Matt then, if Jackson said it. Jackson never got any of their identically terrible names mixed up. “It’s cool. I very much doubt anyone here will be heartbroken if you skip the party games. And the party. Go home.”

“Hey, man, don’t be that way-” Matt started, but Jackson swung deftly around, easily pulling the girls with him, and cut him out of the circle.

“Lahey, go get Trixie and Company and get them to meet us on the front porch. Matt, feel free to fu-”

“ _Jackson_.”

The word was clipped but the tone was easy, and the smile it brought to Jackson’s face was unlike the one he gave anyone else. He immediately peeled away from the girls in order to grab Danny up in a hug, pulling him toward the foyer. The purple of Danny’s matching tracksuit accented the deep tan of his skin, darker than Scott’s even at this time of year. Scott grimaced down at his Canadian tuxedo. He totally should have thought to ask if the other guys were going to do a group costume.

“Danny, bro, it’s the reappearance of your favorite cliche party pastime. No, not body shots. Boyd is setting up outside, we just need to…” The sound of Jackson’s voice faded out as he walked Danny easily back onto the porch, allowing the Alpha Chi girls to follow. Boyd’s arm came up around Scott’s shoulders and he guided the Alpha toward the door.

“You know my chances of the bottle actually landing on Stiles are really slim, right?” Scott asked under his breath, trying to avoid looking over his shoulder for the man in question.

“Well, you’ll have two shots at it. And even if it doesn’t, he’ll react to you kissing someone else, won’t he? You’ll be able to smell his reaction. And if you can’t, one of us will know. We can tell you how much it bothers him to see you with someone else, give you a chance to break the ice-”

“Boyd, there is no way this is going to work.”

“Every teenage movie made from 1994 to 1999 can’t be completely wrong, right? Just sit, Scott,” Boyd smiled, pushing him onto his ass on the front porch.

Around him, people formed a loose circle. Jackson and Isaac slipped in on either side of Scott, bracketing their Alpha with a bit more protective attitude than might be necessary considering Spin the Bottle was a game more suited to thirteen year olds than college sophomores of twenty. Stiles sat at his nine o'clock, smiling at his own hands in his lap and taking sips from his flask, and the rest of the pack plus some random brothers and sisters filled in the rest of the circle. Scott could smell the nervousness radiating off of Stiles in waves. It smelled different than Stiles’ anxiety smell, than the harsh tang of a panic attack or the weighty crush of Stiles under stress. Instead, it reminded Scott slightly of champagne bubbles popping in his nose on New Year’s Eve. He took a deep breath, trying to imprint the scent on his brain, and then focused on the middle of the circle where Boyd was placing a glass bottle.

“You know the rules, kids,” Boyd smiled, settling in the circle across from Stiles. “Spin it to win it, no passes, no stopping the bottle on purpose, and remember to put on a good show. Everybody wins.”

Erica laughed and reached forward, giving the bottle a harsh turn. It spun wildly, flinging itself through two and a half rotations on the smooth wooden planks of the porch before it slowed, and then another almost-full turn before stopping in front of Isaac’s cross-legged form. Boyd groaned, but laughed as Erica stretched across the circle, tipping herself up on her hands and knees. Isaac crawled forward as well, laughing awkwardly as he pushed her hair out of her face. Kira catcalled, and Isaac rolled his eyes.

“She’s like my sister,” Isaac groused, but his smile was full as she met him in a wet, playfully sloppy kiss. It only lasted a second or two, but Scott felt his face heat up on Isaac’s behalf as Erica fisted one hand in his t-shirt, holding him still.

“Thanks bro,” she laughed against his lips, and then pushed him back on his ass. Isaac went, grinning.

“Yeah, yeah, next please,” Boyd smirked. “Before the Lannisters decide to ditch the rest of us. Kadie, right? You’re up.”

The girl from the dance floor, the one who’d flirted so shamelessly with Stiles, giggled as she took a drink from a wine cooler and then reached out for the bottle. Her spin was ineffectual at best, but it didn’t seem to matter. As soon as it landed on Jackson, she preened. “Come on over, baby.”

Jackson stayed sitting, leaning back on his hands with his legs crossed in front of him. “I think you should probably come for me instead.” He smiled his most charming smile. Scott groaned inwardly. Stiles groaned outwardly. For a moment, their eyes met and Scott forgot what was happening, forgot this was all an elaborate ploy to get Stiles to kiss him, just got lost in Stiles’ whiskey eyes, in the crinkle of his smile, the sheer joy of knowing his best friend. When Stiles went pink and looked away, Scott blushed too.

Kadie apparently didn’t mind Jackson’s total douchiness, if the way she unsubtly straddled his legs and attacked his mouth was any clue.

“Woooowww,” Danny drawled, eyebrows high on his forehead. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable right now. Way too much heterosexuality happening here.”

Jackson turned out of the kiss, Kadie’s forehead resting against his temple, and pulled Danny in to lick up the side of his face.

“EW! God, Jackson, you’re so fucking gross,” Danny cried, shoving Jackson away from him. Kadie laughed, high and pitchy, and then stood and sauntered back across the circle. She handed the bottle to Kira on her left with both hands, like an offering.

“Your turn, pretty,” she grinned, and Kira waggled her eyebrows.

“Wish me luck!” The bottle spun wildly, rocketing across the planks of the porch, and Kira giggled. She shot a long look at Malia, on the other side of Stiles, but when the bottle slowed it was nowhere near the werecoyote. Instead, it landed smack-dab between Boyd and an Alpha Chi girl he didn’t know.

“Wait, wait,” Stiles flailed, looking to Boyd. “That’s not in the rules. What if it doesn’t land on anybody?”

“Well, there are a couple ways we could handle it-” Boyd started.

“Both.” Erica batted her eyes as she interrupted, grinning like the cat who ate the canary in Kira’s direction. “Just kiss both.”

Kira shrugged and scooted across the circle, doing a sort of half-crabwalk that made Scott laugh. She paused in front of Boyd first and pressed a series of dainty kisses all over his face, making them both giggle.

“Could you stop being so cute please?” Malia whined.

“No don’t! I never get to see my boo all squishy.” Erica’s smile was so big that it looked almost painful.

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to be squishy when you have a predatory sexpot for a girlfriend,” Stiles sniped before tucking his face back down into his scarf. Erica mimed throwing her drink at him.

“Pucker up, Jens,” Kira laughed, swinging around to the cute redhead in head-to-toe plaid on Boyd’s left.

“You gonna lay one on me Alpha Chi style?” the girl laughed, making the most exaggerated duckface she could muster. Kira did as well before smashing their faces roughly together and then shaking her head back and forth. After a half second, both girls pulled their chins back but let their noses nuzzle, giggling.

“Seriously, I’m getting a stomach ache,” Stiles laughed, stretching forward to grasp Kira’s ankle from across the circle. She and Jens separated with one more brief press of lips to each cheek and Kira took her place next to Stiles once more.

“On to you, good sir,” she laughed. Stiles took a large swig of the beer sitting next to him and grabbed the bottle, just holding it for a minute. Scott’s chest tightened. The mix of scents in the air was heady and confusing: nervousness, hope, amusement, excitement, boredom, arousal, the sharp bite of the cold, alcohol, the overwhelming smell of the cologne Danny and Jackson both wore, and under it all, the scent of Stiles, their shared laundry soap and shower gel and home. Scott tried, but he couldn’t sort out which feelings belonged to which packmates, so instead he took a long drink out of his own cup and tried to tamp down the butterflies in his stomach.

Stiles’ long fingers danced over the bottle as he spun it, leaving his hand on the glass just a touch too long. It made a few rotations before slowing abruptly in front of Stiles again, and then crept the rest of the way around. Scott felt his heart in his throat the entire time it spun, beating fast and uncontrollable. The bottle wobbled past Malia on Stiles’ left, and Scott’s breath caught in his chest. It inched forward, forward, _almost_ -

And stopped directly in front of Isaac.

Isaac shot Scott a quick, sad look, but Scott just smiled. He squeezed Isaac’s shoulder and hooted along with Malia as Isaac and Stiles each crossed over her lap, pushing their mouths together. The kiss was soft, neither pressing for anything beyond the touch of open mouths, a hint of tongue. Stiles bit gently into Isaac’s bottom lip before letting it go with a pop, and Scott was simultaneously dizzy with arousal and disgustingly jealous. He raised his eyebrows in Malia’s direction, pleading silently for some intervention. She nodded quickly, with all the delicacy of an antelope stampede, and then shoved Stiles back into his spot.

“Break it up, lovebirds, it’s my turn!” she crowed, lifting her drink and tossing her hair. The bottle spun wildly, careening across the circle with the force of her spin, and Malia laughed into the air, blowing kisses toward Kira. Scott carefully avoided watching Stiles, physically forcing his eyes away from his best friend’s body.

“Watch it babe,” Kira smiled. “I’m going to think you’re much too excited about kissing other people.”

“I always hope it’ll land on you. It seems only fair after all the time I spent senior year, waiting for the appropriate occasion.”

“Since when did you start kissing Kira at appropriate occasions?” Scott grinned, and Malia stuck her tongue out at him. The bottle, still spinning a bit wildly, slammed forcefully into Matt’s outstretched foot, bouncing off and making almost a full circle back around before stopping in front of Erica.

“C’mere babycakes,” Erica quirked her fingers, but Boyd held up his hand.

“As arbiter of the glass, I’ve gotta give this one to Matt. He physically stopped it with his body, and not on purpose. That counts.”

“What? Ew. No.” Malia looked pained and disgruntled at the same time. It was not an unfamiliar expression.

“Ew?” Matt grunted. “What makes you think you’re such a prize, sweetheart? Fucking A-C bitches…”

“Hey, Matt, cool it bro,” Jackson shot before turning back to Malia. “Boyd makes the calls, Wild Thing. Sorry. Them’s the breaks.” Malia huffed, and Scott did too. Matt might have been his brother, technically, but the guy seemed like a real douchebag. He promised himself that next semester when they rushed, he’d pay better attention to the new recruits.

Malia crawled quickly to the other side of the circle and kissed Matt with a quick, bruising thrust of her jaw. He pulled back, wincing, and so did she.

“Alright, well, that was incredibly awkward.” Boyd reached forward to snag the bottle and tossed it to Isaac. “Hopefully you’ll have better luck on your spin, Lahey.”

Isaac smirked. “Fortune favors the bold and pansexual.”

Isaac’s spin was carefully controlled, as unalike from Malia’s as the two of them were themselves. While she curled into a tense, annoyed ball next to him, Isaac stretched his long limbs out and back, watching the bottle spin with lazy indifference. Scott rolled his eyes. Isaac’s confidence had certainly increased during their collegiate tenure, but it still wasn’t that good. Any supe in the circle could smell the faint lightning-strike scent of his nerves. That scent abruptly vanished when the bottle slowed to a stop right in front of Danny, and was replaced with the cloyingly sweet smell of Isaac’s arousal.

Danny didn’t wait for Isaac to make a move. Instead, he hopped up and crossed the circle himself, stalking toward Isaac like a predator in purple polyester. Isaac’s eyes widened, and Scott thought for just a moment he saw them flash gold in the dim light of the porch. Danny settled easily into a squat over Isaac’s thighs, hovering above the wolf’s lap in a tease.

“Come and get it,” Danny grinned, closing his eyes. He didn’t have to wait long. Isaac kissed ferociously, all scrabbling hands and searching tongue. He pulled Danny’s body down onto his own, hard. One of Isaac’s hands found Danny’s ass,  while the other twined itself into short, dark hair, tugging softly. One of them groaned like he was being gutted.

Scott’s face burned watching the intensity of the kiss, like he was a voyeur intruding on some intensely private moment. _Pretty positive spin the bottle is not supposed to inspire a make-out session_. Still, if it was him in that situation and the bottle had landed on Stiles… He pulled his eyes away from the mess Isaac and Danny were making of one another, only to have them meet Stiles’ across the circle. His breath caught in his chest as he took in Stiles’ face, open and affectionate and unsure. He watched, obvious and careless, as Stiles dragged his tongue over his bottom lip, like he did so often when he was nervous or stalling or thinking hard. Scott couldn’t help but imagine how those lips would taste, how Stiles’ tongue would fit in his own mouth, how that fluttering pulse would race under his hands. He thought about pulling Stiles’ lanky body into his lap, about gripping him tight the way Isaac was holding Danny, running his hands up from narrow hips to strong, broad shoulders, pulling that dear head down by the nape of the neck and-

“Scott,” Isaac’s voice was breathless and harsh as he waved the bottle in Scott’s face. “Your turn, dude.”

“Thank God,” Jackson grumbled. “I was afraid someone was going to have to get the hose. Danny, come here before you make Lahey cream himself.”

Scott grabbed the bottle from Isaac without looking away from Stiles. His best friend was all pink and pale in the cold air, and Scott thought distractedly that he should find Stiles a better coat than the fitted hoodie he had thrown over his plaid earlier. He placed the bottle gently on the porch in front of himself and spun, and he thought maybe Stiles’ heartbeat stuttered for just a moment before they both looked down to watch where it would land.

It was close. Scott knew it would be. He could feel Isaac vibrating with tension on one side of him, Jackson alert but consciously relaxed on the other. Even the betas that didn’t belong to him seemed to be straining forward, eyes glued to the progress of the bottle. So when it landed somewhere in between Stiles and Malia, Scott nodded, preparing himself for the moment. Malia cringed as she looked down at the bottle pointing just to the right of her thigh, and shot Scott an apologetic look that Stiles couldn’t see.

“Both of them, yeah, Boyd?” Scott got out, mouth dry. The planks of the porch were hard and cold under his knees but it was fine, it didn’t matter, not if-

“No way, man,” Matt’s voice interrupted his thoughts with a sneer. “The bottle’s obviously closer to the Queen of Cold Fish.”

Scott blanched. The bottle was closer to Malia, sure, but it still sat in that middle space between them. He looked to Boyd, felt his eyes go wide and desperate even as Matt continued talking.

“There’s no way you can compare that one to Cho Chang’s spin earlier,” he groused. “I know you’re trying to make it easier on super dyke here but-”

“Hey!” Stiles and Scott shouted at the same time. Malia put a hand out to hold Isaac down, but Scott knew it would be seconds before one or more of his pack gave up the ghost, growled and flashed their eyes at this asshole.

“We’re done here,” he said stiffly, rising in as fluid a motion as he could. He offered Malia his hand and pulled her up, cocked his head toward the door. “We’re going in. Jackson, I suggest Matt goes home. Now.”

Behind him, he heard Kira say, “Stiles, no, just wait-” but he tuned out as soon as the heavy door closed behind Malia.

“I told Boyd that was a stupid idea,” he grumbled, rubbing a thumb comfortingly over the back of her hand.

Malia squeezed his bicep with her free hand and rested her head briefly on his shoulder. “I think we’d both feel better if you let me slash that guy’s tires.”

“Probably,” Scott smiled. “But why don’t we just get trashed instead? Then if you happen to do it while I’m not looking, I won’t feel guilty over it.”

“Deal.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter: Stiles repeats the lesbophobic slur from the last chapter, though not at anyone.

“And stay out!” Stiles yelled from the porch, taking another pull from his flask. He watched, shoulders slumped, as Matt backed out of the small lot in front of the house.

“Well, that was sufficiently terrible,” Isaac cringed, holding his own bicep awkwardly.

“You can say that again.” Stiles dragged his palm down his face, letting it rest over his nose for just a moment to trap his own breath. _Too fucking cold out here._

“No, it’s fine, we’ll figure something else out,” Erica said, rubbing her hands up and down against Stiles’ arms to chafe some heat into him. Jackson watched, arms crossed over his chest as Matt’s tail lights disappeared into the night. Everyone else had already wandered back into the house, cool night air winning over liquor-warmth and flair-bedecked jean jackets.

“I can’t believe I sat on this fucking porch for half an hour, in the cold, to kiss _Isaac_ -” Isaac looked suitably chagrined, “-and then listen to some total douchebag call Malia a - a -”

“It’s cool, we all heard it. You don’t have to say-”

“A _DYKE_!” Stiles stamped one foot hard against the ground, catching the attention of several of the Alpha Chi girls who’d filtered out to the porch. “I didn’t mean - ah. Shit.”

“Yeah. Like I was saying, you don’t have to say it,” Jackson intoned, rolling his eyes. “Do you at least believe us now? Even if you didn’t before, no one could have missed the way he looked at you.”

Stiles rocked back on his heels. “He might have wanted to kiss me, maybe. Or maybe he’s tipsy, and I’m easy. Maybe he’s lonely. Maybe he wants to bone but not like, be together? Which I completely get but I don’t think I could do, not at all, not with Scott. Maybe he-”

“Stiles,” Erica stopped him, hands still on Stiles’ arms.

“Okay. Say you’re right. Say Scott’s into me. He’s been my best friend since we were four years old, and I love him more than anybody but my dad, and he _knows_ that. So if he was in love with me, _why wouldn’t he tell me_?” was what finally came out of his mouth, too-loud and too-high.  Isaac winced.

“I was sort of hoping you could tell us that.” Isaac glanced toward the house and shook his head. “I asked him earlier, but he seemed to really not want you to know. Which is hilarious considering everyone but you at least suspected something was going on already.”

“Everyone?” Stiles gaped.

“What would you think, boy genius?” Erica laughed. “You heard me earlier. You spend all your time with him. Where one of you goes, there the other is also. You rarely fight, you have no concept of personal space. I’m pretty sure this party is the first time you’ve been apart in public for anything other than class in months.”

“Maybe you guys are right. Maybe Scott wants to date me. But at this point, isn’t that kind of secondary?”

Erica and Isaac tilted their heads a bit to the side, looking at him with matching questions on their faces, and Stiles was suddenly blindsided by how alike they were, for all the things that had happened to pry them apart. Wonder Twins indeed.  

“It’s just, he’s been acting weird for - well, a while. And I am a terrible best friend because I don’t even know how long it’s been this way, just that I was, you know. Sad. And then I wasn’t, and he was sad instead. And even though I had zero problem telling him all the various ways I could be sad, he apparently has reasons for keeping that from me.”

Stiles dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and wished for probably the thirtieth time that evening that when Scott had gotten superpowers, he’d been gifted something useful to help deal with it. Like telepathy. Or maybe the ability to walk through all the walls he was finding between them.

Or flight. Flight would be awesome.

Jackson patted him consolingly, exaggerated pout on his face. “Baby’s first separation anxiety.”

“Hey, come on, we’ve totally had separation anxiety before.”

“Scott’s hiding things from you,” Isaac drew a circle on the deck with one toe, watching it intently. “Which we now know is a thing Scott is capable of doing.”

The reality of that slammed through him, seizing the breath in his chest.

“Was it like this before you kicked Derek to the curb?” Jackson asked, pulling his punches just as much as he usually did which was not at all.

“Nah. You remember what it was like last Spring. Every party, every club event, Scott was there and happy and having fun. He was so excited about moving into the house with the rest of you guys, couldn’t wait to spend the summer at home, see everybody together again. I don’t know when the thing with Isaac happened, exactly -” Stiles pointedly didn’t look at him, not asking, “- but things were fine before…”

“He’s scared, Stiles.” Erica was uncharacteristically serious as she pulled Stiles in for a hug, going for pack comfort over propriety as usual. “He watches you when you’re not looking, like someone might take you away again. What happened with Peter, it scared us all, and Scott more than anyone.”

“Pretty sure it scared me more than anyone, actually,” Stiles said, trying not to feel self-conscious about it. He’d almost died. It was completely normal to be creeped out of your mind by that.

“Fear… changes people, makes them act in ways they wouldn’t normally. You just have to look at Derek to know that.” Erica looked a little pleading, and Stiles had to physically shake off the unease that accompanied seeing her like that. “You know Derek would never have intentionally -”

“I know you have to defend your Alpha and all, but I’m pretty sure no one else in a thirty mile radius gives a fuck about what Derek would or wouldn’t do,” Jackson cut in. “Unless you conveniently forgot, Derek is the reason all of us have been tortured countless times, nearly killed on multiple occasions, and are in dire need of cognitive behavioral therapy. Well, okay, Isaac’s dad did not help, but that’s not the point. Derek may be a better Alpha now, but it’s not as if he cared a ton about Stiles before he found a use for him. Not like Scott.”

“Ugh, guys, don’t,” Stiles grumbled, raking a hand over his face once more. The shared custody situation they had of Erica and Boyd was difficult enough without Jackson being an asshole, no matter how correct he was. “This is a party, not a pack meeting.”

“Could have fooled me,” Jackson shrugged. “Seems like we’ve been going over fucking minutes from July since we got here.”

“Stop, then.”

“Is that what you want?” Isaac asked, still avoiding Stiles’ eyes. “You want us to just… I dunno. Let you work it out yourselves?”

Erica snorted. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”

“He’s been this way for months, right? Doesn’t look like he’s going to make a move either way on his own.” Stiles shrugged, trying not to reveal how desperately he wanted someone to make the decision for him, to just tell him what to do, how to be the friend Scott needed without cutting off this potential he could feel welling up between them.

“It’s cool. Let’s give him another chance to make a move, yeah?” Jackson jerked his head in Erica’s direction. “Here’s your chance to make up for that horrifying display on the dance floor, Reyes.”

“You just keep Trixie away from Malia while she gets Scott drunk, okay? I don’t trust him not to run his mouth and ruin the moment.”

“Wait,” Stiles gawped, mouth opening and closing like a fish. “ _I’m_ Trixie? I thought Malia was Trixie! Or Kira! Why the fuck am _I_ Trixie?”

“You don’t choose your nickname, Trixie,” Isaac laughed, holding open the door for him. “It chooses you.”

“You are never getting that scarf back, Lahey.”

 

The packs, Kadie, and a few of the sorority sisters sat in a rough approximation of a circle around the Honor Room. A large portrait of Kira hung alongside those of the other officers, bright smile sincere on her face. She and Malia cuddled in an overstuffed armchair, Kira’s legs thrown haphazardly over Malia’s lap.

“I’m never going to get over how disgustingly adorable you two are,” Erica grinned from the opposite side of the room, leaning back against the bottom of Boyd’s armchair, arms thrown over his knees.

“We learned from the best,” Malia grinned, sticking her tongue out at Erica before lapping into the shot of anise-infused liquor she’d poured liberally into a stemless wine glass. They’d learned a long time ago that it didn’t work quite the same way on Kira and Malia as it did the wolves, but Jackson had tweaked the recipe enough to work for all of them, even if it smelled sort of strange.

“Are you two the reason they’re so touchy?” Kadie demanded from the midst of her little cluster of A-C girls. “Erica, it’s gotten worse since you moved out.”

“How could it have gotten worse? We caught them fucking in-”

Stiles flushed and stuttered, “Hey, hey, pretty sure we’ve all seen enough of Jennies-Come-Lately-”

“And often!” they giggled in unison, very old joke made fun again by repetition and time.

“-thanks girls,” Stiles nodded, smiling sarcastically. “We don’t need you to finish that sentence, Erica, lest everyone here be barraged with irrevocable mental images that will keep us all awake for weeks, and make Isaac extremely sad that he’s single.”

Isaac cringed, and Scott’s mouth pulled down in a frown even as he tipped back the bottle of tequila that Isaac had playfully drawn a pair of snapping jaws on. Danny just looked on thoughtfully.

“Danny, could you…”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Danny grinned, shaking his head as if to clear it before taking a sip of his own beer. He, Jackson, and Isaac sat close to Scott, but not huddled up the way the girls did. “Erica, you want McCall Pack rules, or Hale Pack rules?”

Stiles dimly heard Kadie whispering to a friend - Sarah maybe? - “So, do you have any idea why they call their friends packs?”

“I dunno,” Sarah answered. “Maybe it’s a…. scouting thing? Religious? Something?”

“A gang?”

“Have you ever looked seriously at Scott McCall?” Sarah snorted. “Kid would have gang members sitting down for tea parties and _Gilmore Girls_ marathons. It’s gotta be some kind of scouts thing.”

He shook his head before honing back in on Erica’s crafty face.

“This time? Hale Rules. Any time someone successfully completes the task set before them, everyone else takes a shot.”

“Isn’t that the point of truth or dare? That you _have_ to do whatever your task is?” Sarah asked, smiling mischievously.

“Hale Rules allow for two lifelines, one for you, and one for a friend. You can choose not to do the task someone sets for you, in which case you have to take a shot and do a different task. If you want to help out a friend, you can use your other freebie, in which case you take a shot, and do a task on their behalf.”

“These rules are really strange,” Kadie complained. “I’ve never heard of someone trying to keep their friends from having to do a truth or a dare. Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?”

“Pack sticks together,” Erica said simply. “Sometimes there are lines we don’t cross. Sometimes you take one for the team.”

Jens rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. “Alright, so who goes first?”

“Scottie McHottie was the last one up in spin the bottle,” another sister grinned, and Stiles didn’t even try to pull his eyes from the hot pink flush working its way up Scott’s neck.

“Fine, yeah, yeah, I’ll go,” Scott rolled his eyes, grinning. He caught Stiles’ for just a moment, mouth quirking a little further before he turned to Danny. “Alright, bro. Who’s going to embarrass me this time?”

“Ooooh, me,” Erica giggled. “Truth or dare, McCall?”

Scott groaned, but smiled. “Coming from you? Definitely truth.” Stiles watched him carefully, looking for signs that he was nervous, but Scott looked like he always did: easy and graceful, loose-limbed and gorgeous under the soft yellow light of the sconces on the walls. “Do your worst, I guess.”

Erica looked thoughtful for a half beat before a predatory smile graced her red-painted mouth. “Scotty McHottie: describe, in detail, your favorite masturbatory fantasy.”

Stiles’ jaw dropped. “What?!”

“I wanna know what he thinks about when he gets himself off,” she clarified unnecessarily.

“Yeah - no, I get what you’re asking but - what?!”

“It’s okay Stiles,” Scott laughed, shaking his head. His face was flushed bright red and he took a sip from the tequila bottle before continuing, “It’s fine, I’ll answer.”

“Are you sure?” Stiles could feel himself sputtering but - well. Erica was not supposed to ask him that. _Do you like dudes?_ maybe, or a more pointed, _do you like someone here?_ or even, _tell us something nobody should know about you_. But this was…

This was going to be a problem.

Because Scott didn’t kiss and tell. Even with Allison, as excited as he’d been about having sex with his literal dreamgirl, he’d never spilled about what it was like, what they did together. Every time Stiles had asked, he’d simply flushed bright red, shaken his head, and gently stated, “That really wouldn’t be okay to tell you. Yes, _even you_ , Stiles.”

This was going to ruin him.

“Well, I mean… I’m guessing in this scenario you want the fantasy where I take my time, huh?” Scott said, nails scraping at the homemade label on the bottle in his hand.

“Is that your favorite?” Erica grinned cheekily.

Scott nodded, ducking his head. “Uh. Yeah. It is.”

“Then yes. Give me the long one. And if any of you says ‘that’s what she said’ I’m stealing your drink.”

“Okay. I can do that. Um. Okay.” Scott took a drink and met Stiles’ eyes just once. A soft smile graced his mouth before he sterned his shoulders and nodded. “It starts with hands.”

“Oooooh,” Erica teased, swirling her cup.

“Hush,” Kadie groused at her, waving a hand in her direction. “You’re not the only one who’s wondering what McHottie’s got going on under the hood, Reyes.”

“Oho!” Erica laughed, but Boyd clapped a large hand over her mouth, effectively stilling the flow of words, if not sounds. Her eyes smiled as she bit him, and Stiles tried not to laugh. He failed a little.

“Please continue, Scott,” Boyd rolled his eyes and tangled his hand in her hair instead, shutting her up by way of headrubs. It was a bit gross, like they always were, but that didn’t keep Stiles from being achingly jealous for half a moment, until Scott’s voice interrupted his thoughts once more.

“Haha, yeah. So. Uh, hands? Um. All over. Just two, not like… multiple sets or anything, just two… hands. Long fingers, rubbing all over my skin.”

“Are you naked?” Kadie whispered loudly. Scott grinned.

“Usually, yeah. Just me in my bed on some lazy Saturday morning… the apartment’s all still, and my sheets smell nice and clean, and I’m just, you know, laying there… and then, hands.”

The image came easily to Stiles’ brain. He’d walked in on Scott in his bed, sleeping or not, thousands of times since they’d moved in together. Rarely completely naked, but always sleep-tousled and shirtless, warm brown skin contrasting beautifully on blue-white sheets, looking inviting and sweet as he rolled around in his down comforter, whined about the bright light streaming through the window. It was the work of seconds to erase the sleep-warm smile on his face, replace it with flushed arousal and heated eyes and a gasping, panting mouth as his own long-fingered hands ghosted over this dream Scott’s skin.

“They start in my hair, usually. I, uh, like it when they pull. Just a little. They drag down my neck and sort of rub my collarbones, like they’re, um, framing my throat.”

“Like, choking you?” Jens asked, wide-eyed.

“No, no, not like that. Just… holding? They’re solid, but they don’t push. Just… there. Rubbing a little. They move down my chest, teasing my nipples and uh -” Scott stopped to take another sip and immediately chased it with water, gulping audibly. “And then, you know. Lower.”

“In detail, McHottie,” Erica prompted. Scott winced, but nodded. He took a deep breath, and Stiles breathed with him unthinkingly. He steeled himself to go on in the same way Scott did, imagining crime scene pictures in order to keep from popping a frankly incredible boner in a room full of supes. Sure, they knew he was down, but they didn’t need to know _just how down_ he was, really.

Fuck. This was definitely going to be bad.

“They slide over my hips, sometimes tapping their fingers against my hip bones, sometimes scratching a little in the hair under my belly button.”

“Do they have long fingernails?” Kadie butted in, and Scott startled a little.

“Um. No. they’re… uh, short. Like, chewed maybe. No fingernails.”

“Oh,” Kadie sighed, nodding. “Kira chews hers.”

Scott’s face turned an alarming shade of pink as he shook his head. “I mean, I love Kira, and yes, she does chew her nails -” Malia mimed biting Kira’s fingers which sent both girls giggling, and Scott grinned at them, fond before continuing, “- but they aren’t, uh, girl’s hands.”

It was as if all the air was suddenly thinner in the room, like maybe everyone was gasping for the same exact breath at the same time. Stiles’ heart rate nearly doubled, tripping over itself to pump blood both to his ears and to his dick, in case maybe Scott said that again.

Sure, he’d figured Isaac wouldn’t lie about that, but it was one thing to hear someone say Scott might like guys, and another completely to hear Scott say - well, this.

His favorite fantasy was a man’s hands on his body.

Long fingers.

Chewed nails.

Stiles didn’t look at his own hands balled up in his lap as he felt Scott’s eyes lingering on him. The stillness stretched out like maybe it was just the two of them in the room, the same as it was at home, sharing space and shuffling through the soft, open domesticity they created together. He wanted to look up, to catch Scott’s eyes and smile and maybe wink, to tell him with his face, _It’s alright, it’s okay, you can tell me. You can just say it. Say you want me._

As he started to lift his chin, though, someone else broke the silence.

“Okay, but you’re…?” Kadie’s eyebrows furrowed. “Are _all_ of you gay?”

“No? As far as I know, the only gay person here is Danny?” Scott raised his eyebrows in Isaac’s direction, and then at Kira and Malia. They nodded. “I’m bisexual. So are they, I think? Isaac’s pan. So technically, hardly any of us are gay. Jackson’s straight, even. Mostly.”

Jackson shrugged, a little smirk playing around his eyes. “Heteroflexible.”

“That’s offensive and you know it,” Stiles said, automatic. “Your sexuality has nothing to do with who gives you a blowjob in a dark club bathroom.”

“That’s where the ‘hetero’ part comes in,” Jackson shrugged, immune.

“Wait,” Sarah narrowed her eyes in Stiles’ direction. Her lips thinned into a firm line and her nostrils flared a bit as she asked, “So you’re not actually gay. So. The dancing?”

“I mentioned that earlier,” Stiles drawled, taking a sip of his drink, “but you guys didn’t seem super interested in, ya know, facts.”

“I’m so confused,” one of the other sisters grumbled, someone Stiles didn’t know.

He thumbed at the ragged skin on the edge of his bitten nails, and grinned at his lap.

“Can we just get back to the game please?” Erica huffed, face a little pinker than before but glare no less hard. “I just found out Scott McCall gets off to the idea of dudes’ hands on him, and I really need this discussion to continue in the direction it was previously headed.”

“Right, okay,” Scott nodded, “Yeah. I can do that.”

“Thank you.” Erica tossed her blonde head, accidentally smacking Boyd in the face with her hair. He sighed the sigh of a world-weary traveler and pursed his lips against the taste of hairspray.

“Please continue before she gets bitey,” he said, wrapping a thick forearm around Erica’s waist and pulling her back against his chest. She wriggled and squirmed, mostly for show, and Stiles rolled his eyes.

“Sorry, yeah,” Scott laughed a little before catching Stiles’ eyes across the room. Stiles bit his lip, and nodded, spurring him on. “His hands are cool, and cooler than my skin, and he takes his time getting to my dick. He traces his fingers up the insides of my thighs, because he’s a tease, and because he knows I like it. Sometimes he bypasses my dick altogether, just, uh…”

“...Uh?” Erica prompted, wide-eyed, licking her lips. Danny dropped his head into his hands with a tight little groan, and Jackson elbowed him gently in the ribs.

“Okay. So, sometimes he doesn’t even grab my dick, just goes straight for my -” Scott stopped, squeezing his eyes closed, “-my ass.”

Malia piped up, leaning forward in her seat, “And then?”

“...And then it’s usually over really fast, because I get off pretty much instantly at that point.” Scott shrugged and took another sip of tequila before grimacing and handing the bottle off to Isaac. “There. Done. Someone please take this from me because it’s disgusting and it wasn’t even really helpful. Who’s next?”

“You get to choose, Alpha,” Boyd laughed, trying to still Erica where she wriggled in his lap. Stiles snorted and shook his head.

“Erica, give the guy a break. Everybody knows you’re not going to make it past ten o’clock anyway. Let him at least finish the game.”  

Scott turned toward him and grinned, eyes bright with shared awareness, the memory of all the parties where they’d watched Erica pulling Boyd out of the room, or (more notably for its rare occurrence) Boyd tossing her squealing over his shoulder and taking the stairs two at a time.

“Go on and pick, McCall,” Jackson prompted, one hand resting comfortably on Danny’s nape. Scott’s eyes widened as if to ask, _you_? Stiles froze in his chair, hand clenched on the armrest for dear life.

On the one hand, Scott had just shared something intimate, something real, something _really_ fucking hot, and Stiles wanted, ached to do the same, to lay his cards on the table and just let things happen.

On the other hand, bitten nails and long fingers weren’t “I love you” and “I’ll keep you,” and Stiles wasn’t positive that’s what he needed, necessarily, but the longer they drew this out, the more he thought - well.

_If our mom was an idiot who didn’t realize our dad was fucking in love with her._

Was it so bad to really want that to be the case? And if he did, would public half-confessions get them there?

Scott held his eyes for a breath longer before turning to Danny with a smile. “This is your rodeo, Moony. Truth or Dare?”

Danny’s eyes widened for a split second before his trademark smile flashed bright. “Oh, it’s like that huh? Hit me with your best shot, McCall. _Dare_.”

“Uhhh,” Scott stumbled, obviously expecting truth. “Hm. Okay. Ummm. Alright.” Stiles sighed inwardly. Scott - lovable, adorable, good-natured Scott - was terrible at truth or dare. They’d only ever played it twice before, but both times Scott had flailed and failed pretty hard when it was his turn to embarrass someone half to death. There was no version of the universe in which this would go well, and yet all he could really do was sit and watch as Danny’s eyebrows crept higher up his forehead, and Scott rubbed at his temples. “Okay. Okay, I got it.”

“Give it up, then!” Danny laughed. “And trust, if you dare me to act out that little fantasy of yours in one of these back bedrooms, I will definitely punch anybody who tries to lifeline me out of it.”

“No!” Scott gasped, a shocked little laugh forced out of his gut. “No, no, not that. Um. Thanks though? Uh. No, I want you to… kiss the hottest person in the room right now.” He grinned and nodded, pride at his dare seeping out of the corners of his smile. Stiles cringed and nodded along.

“Really?” Danny looked a little confused, and then glanced around the circle. “That’s all. Really. You just… want me to choose the hottest guy in the circle and kiss him?”

“Or her,” Scott nodded again, and then frowned. “Uh, I guess ‘her’ wouldn’t really be relevant though so. Yeah, him. Whoever he is.”

“Well, despite what I said earlier…” Danny trailed off, eyes zeroing in on Isaac. “I’m gonna have to go with Mr. LayMe over there.”

Isaac grinned and scooted over Scott’s feet, bridging the gap between them. Rather than hold a repeat of their earlier antics, Danny pulled Isaac in by the shirt collar until their mouths were just breaths apart, and held him there, still.

“Did you want something, Moony?” Isaac asked, voice crackling a bit with the tension.

“Maybe,” Danny shrugged, eyes trained on Isaac’s mouth. “You got something on offer?”

“Usually,” Isaac laughed. “More than that, for you.”

“Find me later,” Danny ordered before pressing a fast, fierce kiss to Isaac’s mouth. It was over almost before it started, and Stiles could practically see little birds swanning around Isaac’s head as he reeled back, catching himself on his palms.

“Well then,” Stiles broke the silence settling over the room with a brisk rub of his palms. “Who’s your victim, Danny Boy?”

“Who else, Trixie?” Danny grinned, raising his beer in Stiles’ direction. “Truth or Dare?”

Stiles weighed his options. Danny hadn’t been there are the beginning of the night, but he seemed to automatically know every thought Jackson had regardless. If he said truth, he could end this. Danny would ask, and he could say, “Yes, yes, the newfound heroism never wore off, and neither did the attraction. Come at me, bro. Or on me. Whichever.”

He cringed a little even thinking about it.

Alternately, he could choose dare. They’d always worked better without words, he and Scott. When words failed there were familiar hands, grand gestures, lifesaving split second decisions. They’d always operated on a level that needed much less language than Stiles generally spit out; why should this be any different?

He wasn’t even sure why he’d wasted time thinking about it, when he’d known all along he’d choose, “Dare.”

“Alright Stilinski!” Jackson crowed. Isaac rolled his eyes, but Erica and Boyd both visually straightened up despite their canoodling, and Stiles was pretty sure Malia removed her face from Kira’s neck long enough to wink at him.

“What’ve I gotten myself into?” Stiles laughed, mind racing. His hands shook a little around his glass, out of excitement or nerves he wasn’t sure. He pictured it with crystal clarity: crossing the room to Scott’s chair, kneeling between his spread legs, pulling him down by the nape of his neck. He imagined the hot, liquor-sweet taste of Scott’s lips, his tongue, the way he’d curl them both and send lightning down Stiles’ spine, the way he’d -

“Alright, Trixie. Get out your phone. Call the 8th person in your contacts list and tell them everything you think about them until the voicemail cuts you off, or they hang up. You have your mission.”

Stiles blinked.

He stopped, took stock of the fallen faces peering at him from around the room, and blinked again.

“Here,” Kira nudged him, pointing to where his phone was wedged between the arm of his chair and the cushion. “It’s there.”

“Uh. Thanks,” Stiles nodded, and pulled it out. His fingers danced over the screen but he didn’t even have to look to know whose name would be number eight on the list.

_Derek Hale_

The letters and numbers swam in front of his eyes as cold panic crept into his chest.

“Stiles?” Scott’s voice seemed far away, like maybe it was coming from the end of the hall, outside, a different planet. “Stiles, hey, hey, breathe buddy.”

“It’s Derek,” Stiles got out on a huffed breathe, eyes wide. “Number eight in my phone is - is Derek.”

“Eighth person, huh?” Scott had his phone in hand immediately, scrolling through his contacts. “And I’m guessing if they’re here they don’t count. Mine’s Deaton. He’ll be thrilled to hear from me, actually. You want me to do this in front of everyone? If I cry when I tell him he’s like a much better version of my dad, no one gets to laugh.”

“Sure thing, Alpha,” Jackson nodded, hand clasped against Danny’s nape again.

“Dude, sorry,” Danny whispered, but Stiles shook his head, stuck a hand out to stop Scott in the middle of his white knight act.

“Don’t. I’ll um. I’ll do it. I’ll call him.”

“Whoa,” Isaac’s jaw sank open in slow motion. “Are you sure? Stiles, I don’t think -”

“No, I will,” Stiles nodded, guts churning. “I will. It’ll be good. Um. Healing. You know. And Derek never answers his phone so I’ll just… leave him a voicemail. Tell him what I think of him. Now.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Kira tried, obviously conflicted.

“Yeah, you tell him baby,” Erica chimed in, sad little frown marring her face. Scott shook his head, halfway across the room and hesitating, like maybe Stiles wouldn’t want him to approach. Like maybe he was that vulnerable creature he’d been in the summer, when they’d curled together under the blankets and he’d snuffled into Scott’s t-shirt like they were children again.

“It’s okay, Scotty,” he nodded, like maybe if he told himself that, told everyone else that too, it would be true.

The truth was, this thing with avoiding Derek and everything related to him had gone on long enough that he was pretty sure it qualified as a quality of life issue. It had taken some time to warm back up to the packs, even to Isaac, after the summer but he’d done it, one awkward pack night at a time. This last step was long overdue. He’d just pick up the phone, leave one horribly awkward rambly voicemail, and let himself be done with Derek in every way he needed to be.

Let himself make room, maybe, for someone else.

His hands shook as he hit the “call” button on the screen, but he managed to keep his heart rate under control, looking everywhere but Scott’s soft, sad face across the room. The sharp trill of the other line made him flinch, but he took a deep, calming breath, preparing himself for -

“ _Stiles?_ ”

“Hey. Uh, Derek. Yeah, it’s me.” Stiles rubbed the back of his neck, cringing.

“ _Is everything okay? Is Scott with you? Do you need help? I can be there in half an hour probably, I just need to call Cora, but I can stay on the line if_ -”

“No, no, I’m fine. Everything’s, uh, fine? I’m not in danger or anything.” Stiles looked helplessly toward Erica and Boyd. They looked almost as uncomfortable as he sounded.

“ _Oh._ ” Derek sat quietly for a moment before repeating, “ _Oh. Okay._ ”

“This isn’t a - fuck, it’s not like, a social call? I am calling for a purpose.”

“ _And that purpose is…?_ ” He could hear Derek smile over the line, but the knowledge did nothing for him. It didn’t make his heart beat faster, like it had when they were together, but it also didn’t make him recoil with hurt. It just… _was_.

“I’m calling because I needed to tell you that I’m not mad at you anymore. I’m not… uh, I’m not saying I want to be friends with you or whatever, but I don’t. I don’t _hate_ you, either.” The words tumbled out one after another, falling into places Stiles hadn’t realized they would but were true all the same.

“ _Okay…_ ” Derek drawled out. “ _Is this you saying you could be in the same room with me again?_ ”

“Uh, not so fast, buddy,” Stiles shook his head even though he knew Derek wouldn’t be able to see him. “‘I don’t hate you’ is a pretty far cry from ‘I want to hang out.’”

“ _Alright. I guess I don’t see the point in calling me up to tell me, then,_ ” Derek grunted, familiar old snark creeping into his voice. “ _Especially when it’s after ten._ ”

“Oh my God, you are such an old man.” The sentiment surprised a laugh out of Stiles, and he looked up, catching Scott’s eye on accident.

Scott’s face was open, like it always was for him, feelings on display right there in the middle of the crowd. Stiles catalogued them quick as anything, second nature to comb through the messy excess of Scott’s emotions to pick out the realities underneath. In the blink of an eye, he waded through concern and a hint of hurt, maybe jealousy and some fear, but under it, more important than the rest, was _relief_.

“Erica and Boyd say hi,” Stiles said, never taking his eyes from Scott’s face.

“Tell him I said to fuck off,” Jackson crowed from his left. Scott rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help the small smile that curved up the corners of his mouth.

“Jackson says -”

“ _Yeah, I heard him Stiles_.” Derek sighed and then lowered his voice, as if he knew the entire room was listening and he hoped to keep this bit just between them. It wouldn’t work, and they both knew that, but he felt some of the other supes turning away anyway, in a parody of privacy. Not Scott, though. “ _Thanks for calling. Thanks for telling me, I mean. I’ve missed you, and_ -”

“I haven’t.” Stiles felt a little bad, interrupting like that, but he couldn’t - wouldn’t let a single phone call suddenly undo everything that had been done. Derek laughed.

“ _I know you haven’t. From what Erica tells me, you’re so far up Scott’s ass you don’t have time to notice anybody else. Still. I have, and it’s… nice to know you aren’t. Uh._ ”

“Uh?”

“ _You know._ ”

“Irreparably damaged by the lack of your dick in my life?” Stiles spat, face coloring a bit.

“ _Well, I was gonna say ‘going to loathe me and ignore my existence forever’ but when you put it that way…_ ”

Scott snorted unattractively at that, and Stiles felt himself grinning in response. When he caught Scott’s eye though, every inch of that smile felt forced.

_Relief?_

“Fair enough. I’ll probably continue to ignore your existence most of the time, though. Just because it’s annoying to you, and I get a great deal of joy out of that.”

“ _Not sure why that would have changed_.” Stiles could practically hear the shrug. “ _Okay, have you fulfilled your dare yet? I’m kind of tired_.”

Stiles sputtered for a second before Derek laughed at him.

“ _Of course it’s a dare, you idiot. You haven’t spoken to me in almost six months. Why else would you call out of the blue on a Friday night?_ ”

“Well, when you put it that way… uh, yeah. Yeah, I have.”

“ _Alright then. If you’re done saying what you need to say, I’m going to go. I have some stuff to do before I can head to bed._ ”

“And by stuff I think everybody knows you mean you have _Scandal_ episodes to catch up on.” Stiles rolled his eyes at the begrudging huff of air Derek let slip. “Goodnight, Derek. Don’t call me. I might, but probably won’t, call you.”

Derek sounded fondly exasperated, a normalcy they hadn’t been afforded in a long time, as he said, “ _G’night Stiles_.”

“Okay, so, uh,” Stiles said, shoving his phone in his pocket. “I am gonna go out on a limb and say the Truth or Dare mood’s been broken a bit, huh?”

“Are you okay?” Scott demanded, voice soft but still strong, like it could bolster up all his weak places.

“Yeah, yeah, no big deal, perfectly fine,” Stiles blustered, antsy to get out of the room, out of all that vulnerable space. “What’s next? Are Sean and Connor back with the extra wood yet?”

“Nah, they had to go all the way into town to buy some,” Jackson slid back into his frat bro persona like a second, oily, awful skin. “You know if you want things done quickly you can’t exactly send Jason and Todd to do them. You know. Because you’re their brother, and you know them, and can absolutely tell them apart from Sean. Fuck’s sake, Stiles, there isn’t even a Connor in the Sigs.”

Stiles didn’t even try to hide his cringing. “I got confused! Sue me. Or, don’t, actually. Your dad has more money than God and if Scott and I are late on the rent, Mr. Lewis will kill us. Anyway, any more bright ideas about what we’re doing until then?”

“We could just -” Scott started, hands hanging limply at his sides.

“Come with me, Trixie,” Isaac grunted, sliding off the floor with enough grace to make the Alpha Chi girls behind him swoon a little. “Jackson, you too. We need more punch for this next one.”

“Guys…” Scott said looking half-desperately between Isaac and Stiles, body straining toward them.

“Hang tight boss,” Jackson nodded toward the girls with his chin and waggled his eyebrows. “Bet they wouldn’t mind a repeat performance from earlier while we get stuff set up for the next activity.”

“I… I don’t…” Scott turned beet red and fell silent. Stiles tried very hard not to feel relieved about that.

Relief.


	13. Chapter 13

By the time Scott escaped the group of Alpha Chi girls’ invasive follow-up questions, he was bright red, half-drunk, and fuming. He took another swig of the bottle Danny had passed him around the first time he’d heard the phrase “prostate play” and grimaced.

“Sorry about that one,” Danny said, his voice tinged with humor. “I mean, the phone call thing with Stiles. Not the other stuff. I had nothing to do with that.”

“Besides thoroughly enjoying it,” Scott groused. Danny slid an arm around his shoulders and tipped their heads together.

“Well,” he laughed, “I won’t deny that. I wasn’t the only one though.”

Danny steered them through the house, onto the small back porch so he could sneak a cigarette. Scott wrinkled his nose.

“Sorry. Wolfy senses don’t like ‘em, I know, but after all that I need one.”

“You’re one to talk, anyway,” Scott groaned, covering his face with one hand. “You and Isaac are like dogs in heat, and that one’s been coming for ages.”

“Not as long as you and Stiles,” Danny shrugged. Scott faltered, hoisting himself up to sit on the little banister lining the porch. His thoughts shot to Stiles’ face when he gave up his secret, wide eyed and open mouthed.

“Maybe,” he conceded. “There’s some stuff there you don’t know, though.”

“There usually is,” Danny grimaced as he sucked in nicotine and menthol. “I had to work the whole werewolf thing out for myself, remember?”

“Hey, c’mon, I was trying to protect you,” Scott grumbled, taking another drink.

“You generally are, yeah?” Danny asked, eyebrows raised. “Maybe you could stop that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scott shifted uneasily on the railing. Danny was generally the most relaxed of the group, but there was always something there at the edges, a hardness that allowed him to get along with Jackson so well. More often than not it was a hardness that Scott wished he had as well.

“We’re adults. All of us, even Stiles, though I know he rarely acts like it. You could let us make our choices for ourselves sometimes.” Danny shrugged, and blew an intricate smoke ring with ease. “I know he’s been through a lot lately, what with Derek and everything, but apparently that’s not really an issue anymore. At least not the way you obviously think it is.”

“This isn’t about Derek -” Scott started, but Danny’s completely unimpressed face cut him off.

“You may know Stiles better than anyone, but your pack knows you, Scott. Give him the chance to make the decision for himself. If your friendship can survive lycanthropy, demonic fox possession, and regular exposure to Derek Hale’s eyebrows, it can survive this.”

It wasn’t as if it was the first time anyone had told Scott this. Allison had started telling him she didn’t need to be protected before he even really had the ability to protect her. And Stiles had always been a priority for him, asthmatic and weak though he’d been. They’d been friends, best friends, for as long as he could remember. There were no days locked in his memory where Stiles didn’t exist, hadn’t happened to him yet, like a river reshaping the land around it. He’d built himself around Stiles for as long as he could, and this was no different.

“You think he’d give me a chance, then?” Scott asked, not even trying to tamp down on the hope blossoming in his chest.

“I think if you never give him the opportunity, he won’t ever be able to,” Danny said, stomping out his cigarette butt. “I think if you do, you might be just what he needs.”

“Guys?” Kira poked her head out of the door, hair swishing around her face.

“What’s up?” Danny straightened, and Scott slipped off the railing.

“Come pick a name out of the hat. We’re going to try one more time.” She smiled at Scott and then shot a wink at Danny. “Maybe this’ll be the one, huh?”

Another cliched party game sounded like just about the worst thing he could do. Well, no, actually telling Stiles how he felt would probably be worse, followed closely by eating wolfsbane. After that, though? Definitely another party game.

“Don’t look so disappointed,” Kira laughed. “I think you’ll like this one.”

“What is it?” Danny sounded just about as skeptical as he felt.

“Only the favorite of every 90s party movie ever: Seven Minutes in Heaven.”

 

The drawing was obviously rigged. Isaac went to each person, holding out Boyd’s newsboy cap like an offering. Sometimes he’d shake his head at the girls who drew, or the brothers who wanted to get involved. Sometimes he’d nod quickly, satisfied smirk on his face. He was never, ever subtle.

One slip of paper, with a small scribbled dot in the corner, didn’t get drawn. When Scott’s fingers closed around it, Isaac beamed like a small sun.

“Okay everybody, there are about six closets down here -- good on you, A-C, we never have enough coat closets for parties, you guys are on this -- so we can do the whole thing in shifts. First up, uhhhh… Scott, Kira, Erica, Jens. Read the names on your slips of paper, please.”

Jens unfolded hers first, rocking up and down on her toes in her excitement. Her big, fluffed-up mall bangs and super-teased high ponytail made her look a bit birdlike, especially swallowed up as she was by an oversized sweater. Scott wondered briefly what a werebird would look like, and if she’d get to keep her scrunchie when she shifted.

“Um, I got Lia!” She grinned and quirked her fingers at Malia, who pounced on her like a well-loved cat. Jens scratched at Malia’s head, ruffling her hair. “You don’t mind if I borrow her for a few minutes, Kira?”

“As long as you return her, it’s fine,” Kira allowed graciously, grinning after them as they took off down the hall.

Erica went next, opening her slip of paper with a flourish. “I got … um. Isaac.”

“Well don’t sound so excited there, E,” Isaac huffed, but Erica shook her head.

“No, I’m sorry, it’s just… I had sort of….well. Cheated. I marked Boyd’s slip when I put his name in, so I could find him later.”

Scott’s blood turned cold in his veins.

“So how exactly did you end up pulling _my_ name?” Isaac rested his hands on his hips, just below where his jacket was tied around his waist. His stern face looked a little ridiculous, like Coach in the locker room before practice when he was still trying to be intimidating. “We’re not even going to talk about why you felt you needed to cheat at Seven Minutes in Heaven when you and Boyd were probably going to take off before the end of the game anyway.”

“I’m just not sure how I ended up drawing your name when I specifically marked Boyd’s slip.”

“Um,” Kira offered, holding up her own slip. “I may have had something to do with that.”

Scott put his hands over his face and tried not to sigh. _Of course_. Everyone in his pack was terrible. Wonderful, but terrible.

“I may have marked Isaac’s slip, because I wanted to be sure he didn’t end up in the closet with Danny.” Isaac gaped at her, horrified, but Kira just shrugged. “Our closets are not for that, dude, and besides, I know you. There needs to be talking happening before you do that or you’ll act like it’s just a hook up, and _I know you_.”

Isaac grimaced, but didn’t argue.

“Okay. So if you marked Isaac’s slip, and Erica got it, then who do you have?” Scott asked. Kira’s hesitance confirmed his fears.

“Um. Stiles,” she said, voice cracking a little. “I have Stiles.”

“Awesome,” Scott nodded bitterly. “Which means I have…” he unfolded his slip of paper and met Stiles’ eyes across the room. “Boyd.”

“Well.” Isaac shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. “I mean, that’s the rule of 90s movies, right? Hilarious mix-ups lead to unlikely pairings stuck in dark, cramped closets?”

“You’d better hope no ‘unlikely pairings’ spring up from this,” Erica growled, pulling Isaac along behind her. Stiles just smiled a little in Scott’s direction.

“Hey, wait, can we just -” Scott tried to catch him as he walked by, following Kira to the foyer, but Stiles shook his head.

“Trust me,” he said, still smiling. “You want me in there with her. But we’ll talk after, okay?”

“Oh,” Scott nodded, heart sinking. Of course. _Of course_. “Yeah, uh, that’s… we don’t have to -”

“Scott,” Stiles stopped him, one hand hovering over Scott’s shoulder, but not touching. “We’ll talk after. Get out of your head. It’s all good, right? I just need a sec to process first. I’ll come find you in ten minutes, okay?”

Head reeling, Scott followed Boyd to the biggest, brightest closet the A-C house had to offer. Pushing coats and boots out of the way, some of which were undoubtedly his pack members’ from the scent, he settled against a full-length mirror with Boyd across from him.

“So.” Boyd quirked a grin. With his arms crossed over his chest and his back slouched against the door, he looked smaller than usual, like he didn’t have five inches on Scott on even the best days. “You and Stilinski, huh?”

“Apparently not,” Scott shrugged. He tried not to sound morose about it, even though he could hear himself failing. He’d known from the beginning this was all a longshot, that even if Stiles wasn’t permanently put off dating the supernatural, the chances of him caring about Scott like Scott cared about him were so small.

“Because he wanted a minute or seven to calm down after that display?” Boyd asked, eyebrow raised. “Give him a break, Scott. After he and Derek broke up, Stiles wouldn’t even look at Erica and me for three months. This is only the third party you guys have been to this semester, and he just publicly forgave the guy. You don’t think he did that all for himself, do you?”

“What do you mean?” Scott remembered the way Stiles had hidden in their apartment for months. He thought about how Stiles had flinched at Isaac and Jackson until they came over, held him down and scented him until he was laughing too hard to breathe. He remembered walking Stiles to every class, and spending every weekend by his side rather than going home to see his mom or out with their other friends.

“He wants us to know it’s not going to be a thing anymore. He had his moment - like, a six month long moment - and now he’s moved past it.” Boyd shrugged. “He’s ready for the next step.”

Scott narrowed his eyes as he watched Boyd’s little grin grow into a full-fledged smile, free and easy. “You’re pretty good at this people-reading stuff.”

“Have to be, to keep up with E. She’s all over the place.” His eyes darted toward the door, like maybe he could sense her just outside, ready to break some rules and some hearts too.

“You like it though,” Scott said, thinking of Stiles and his personal brand of spastic love.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Boyd nodded. He dug in his pocket, pulling a small box out and fiddling with it nervously. “Actually, I sort of wanted to tell you this anyway. Derek’s my Alpha and all, but you’re as much our pack leader as he is while we’re here, and…”

Scott’s jaw dropped, and the laugh that bubbled forth was full of joy. “Dude. Dude! No way.”

“I uh, was going to do it on Christmas. She’s a big fan of Christmas.” Boyd blushed and pushed the box into Scott’s hands, revealing a petite diamond solitaire that sparkled brilliantly even in the dim light of the closet. “She doesn’t like big jewelry. Says it makes her nervous. I thought she’d like a diamond though.”

“What’s Derek say?” Scott asked. He tilted the ring box this way and that without pulling away from Boyd’s hands, reluctant to really hold its weight on his own.

“He’s happy. He’s really happy.” Boyd nodded and took a breath, like he was preparing to say something that Scott wouldn’t like.

“Just say it, dude,” Scott shook his head, closing the box with a soft snap. It was already a night for getting things off your chest. Might as well keep the momentum running.

“He misses you. Both of you. And… he’d be happy to know Stiles was with you, if it came to that. Same way Allison and Lydia would be happy, or Kira and Malia are happy, or Erica and I are happy. We all want… what’s best for you both.”

“And you think that’s us being together?” Scott could sort of imagine it, all of them together, both packs and Lydia and Allison and Danny, dancing alongside Erica and Boyd at their wedding. Celebrating together. Finding one another again. And in the midst of it, Stiles in his arms, happy and safe.

Boyd smiled like he knew what Scott was thinking. “I don’t know if I can imagine anything better.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

Stiles barely made it into the closet before he had an armful of sunflower-bedecked kitsune.

“Oh, hey, whoa!” He stumbled back, trying to keep from knocking over the stacks of boxes marked “X-Mas,” “T-Giving,” and “Rush.”

“That was so brave,” Kira said, muffled in his shoulder. “I’m so proud of you for doing that. Especially in front of Scott.”

“Doing wha - wait, the call? I just. I wasn’t even planning to talk to him, really,” Stiles sputtered, shifting them so that he could lean against the door and Kira had room to stand. “I was just going to leave him a long, scathing voicemail. Probably with a lot of cursing and name calling.”

“You didn’t though.” Kira’s earnest sunshine expression was a bit too much to take after that whole experience, but Stiles did his best, focusing on the dust motes floating through the air rather than her face.

“Well, I mean. It seemed like the right thing to do,” Stiles shrugged. “I’m not actually mad at him anymore. I don’t want to see him, or spend time with him ever, and the idea makes me kind of nauseous but -”

“But you’re not put off dating werewolves forever because Derek was a little bit mercenary?” Kira offered.

Stiles’ jaw dropped.

“Put off - wait - _wha_ \- I… what?”

Kira paled in the dim light of the closet, and covered her face with her hands.

“Please forget I said that?” she begged, muffled through her fingers.

“Nope. Not happening. What do you mean by that?” Stiles crossed his arms over his chest to wait, hoping he looked even slightly intimidating. Considering Kira was basically immortal, could shoot electricity from her fingertips at will now, and occasionally used her katana to slice fruit as a party trick, that was probably a stretch. Also he was pretty sure she’d seen him in his boxers at least four times on accident, which generally made everyone look less intimidating, except maybe Isaac because he did that whole underwear model thing that was a little scary.

His brain was not even close to the right track. He tried again.

“Why wouldn’t I date a werewolf again? I’m in a wolfpack, Kira. My best friend in the entire world is a True Alpha. All of my friends are some sort of supernatural creatures, and honestly at this point even if you weren’t, I’m not sure a regular human could handle you guys. What options do I have?”

“You know you could -” Kira started, and then sighed. “That’s not really the point though, is it? Why did you call Derek tonight, Stiles?”

“Um. I don’t know if you were paying attention at all with your tongue down Malia’s throat, but Danny dared me to.”

“And Scott offered to let you out of it. Anyone in the room would have fallen on that sword for you and you know it. So why’d you call him?”

“I guess…” Stiles paused, mulling her question over. It had been a thing for a while, the uneasy weight on his shoulders where he didn’t think about Derek until he did, when someone else brought up his name in a quiet, tentative whisper with pity painted all over their face, and then his stomach turned to lead. Not because of Derek, especially, just because of the way they all felt sorry for him, about how Peter tried to use him, the way Derek looked at the ground when Stiles asked him if it had been about love, or power.

“I wanted everyone to know I’m not like, broken over this. Even Erica had a tough time treating me normally again after Derek and I split up, and I get why, but it’s been months and I’m tired of it hanging over my head all the time.” Once he started speaking, it was a little hard to stop, especially with Kira standing there with such a sweet, receptive smile on her face. “The truth is, I don’t want to be Deaton! I don’t think Deaton wants to be Deaton. Why else would he be so cryptic all the time? Obviously the guy needs more excitement in his life, and hanging out at the vet clinic mixing up mountain ash doesn’t sound all that appealing to me. It’s hard sometimes being the puny human in the crew, but our crew needs a puny human. And it sucked, knowing that Derek wanted to change me, wanted me to convince Scott to join his pack, but time and distance, it’s helped. And I know that Scott’s been a lot more careful with me the last six months, and I get why. But I wanted him to know, you know? I’m ready if he is.”

“And you’re one hundred percent sure about that, Stiles?” she asked, sobering up. “Because Scott… he’s not going to do this unless you’re sure. And you need to be sure. This isn’t something you can just change your mind about three months down the line with no consequences.”

“Trust me, I know all about the consequences of dating the wrong person,” he drawled, rolling his eyes.  

“That’s not what I mean.” Kira took his hand in both of hers, squeezing gently. “When Scott and I split up, it was amicable. I knew I wanted to be with Malia. He knew he wanted me to be happy, and for the pack to be together however was best for all of us. But it was still really hard. You remember, don’t you? Things were strained between us for months, and it was only after Jackson and Isaac came back that we started finding our new normal. If you and Scott can’t make it work despite your best efforts, we’ll find a way to get back to good. But if this is something you’re not sure you want with your whole heart, it may be better just to let it go. Scott’s a strong guy. He’ll move on, and no one will blame you. We all get what’s at stake here, and no one wants you to rush into this.”

Stiles considered it. She wasn’t wrong; things had been rough in the wake of Scott and Kira’s break up. It would be much worse if he and Scott couldn’t make it work, or worse, had a fight like he’d had with Derek. He tried to picture it, the worst possible thing, what they might risk a lifetime of friendship over when it came down to rubber and roads.

His mind easily filled in the missing pieces of their relationship. He pictured waking up with Scott on weekdays in the same bed, getting dressed in the same room, the way they used to when one of them slept over at the other’s house mid-week after a late study session. He imagined riding to campus together like they did already, but replaced their signature handshake with a kiss in the front seat of the Jeep. He imagined meeting for lunch in the caf, coming home after his part time job at the writing center to find Scott happily building sandwiches the way he did most nights, but greeting him with lingering kisses instead of high fives.

Stiles shook his head, trying to clear it of the image of pressing Scott back against the counter, kissing him with single-minded fervor while Scott fumbled with cheese wrappers. He focused on what Kira had asked, tried to imagine a scenario in which he woke up one day no longer loving Scott McCall. Instead of screaming matches or dramatic fights, Stiles pictured the little things: aggravation over werewolf politics, always feeling like he needed to share Scott with the pack, the menial irritants of living with another person day in and day out with no room of his own.

“Dating Scott would be just like dating anyone else,” he spoke slowly, thinking the words right after they rolled off his tongue. “He’d be annoying sometimes. He’s annoying sometimes already.”

“Like when he complains about his chemistry homework but continues to sign up for chemistry classes?” Kira asked, knowing smile on her face.

“Exactly like that,” Stiles agreed. “Or like when he does things and then thinks about them two days later, after they’re already irreversible. Like when he traded in his bike right before we went apartment hunting. Really fucked with our livable area situation.”

“He can be short-sighted,” Kira said. “Malia can too. I know it’s not technically a were-problem, but it sort of feels like a were-problem.”

“Something to do with them being in near-constant danger?”

“Trade-offs of being super, I guess,” Kira shrugged.

“Hey, you’re pretty super,” Stiles laughed, poking at her.

“Sure, but when you’re going to live to a thousand, you get practice thinking ahead,” Kira poked back. “So he’ll annoy you. You’ll annoy him too, I’m sure. Because everyone in relationships does, not because you’re particularly -”

She faltered, blushing. Stiles could see her physically trying to find the words in the air to pull them back in.

“Oh, I am totally annoying. I’ll annoy the pants off him. Hopefully the boxers too. I have to have some way to make up for all the times I’ll steal the covers in the middle of the night or get kidnapped because I can’t keep my nose out of stuff or stay up on Wikipedia for three days straight.”

Kira took his hand, weaving her small fingers in between his large ones.

“Is that enough reason to call it off before it starts?” she asked. There was no judgement in her voice, only simple curiosity.

Stiles’ head filled with images of himself and Scott, together.

_Scott holding the door open as Stiles struggled with an end table the day they moved into their little shared apartment, laughing._

_Scott sitting at the Sheriff’s bedside the night he had a heart attack, holding Stiles’ hand the whole time._

_Chemistry class Freshman year, when they realized that Scott was actually much better at chemistry than anyone (especially Mr. Harris) had given him credit for, and every A- on a test had made his eyes crinkle with joy._

_Scott bringing Stiles coffee late at night in the library while he studied, and sitting with him until two in the morning to keep him awake._

_Endless evenings spent contentedly on the same couch, watching movies and playing games, studying and reading, quiet and still._

_Stiles waking up to see Scott standing in the kitchen, a damp towel wrapped around his waist, making eggs for breakfast with a smile on his face._

_Nine year old Scott standing next to Stiles in an ill-fitting suit at the funeral, both of them crying as they lowered Claudia into the ground._

_Scott’s breath on the back of his neck that night in the July._

“I guess that’s the thing,” Stiles said, trying to fight back the smile threatening to overwhelm his face. “I think uh. I think we’ve maybe already started.”

Kira’s face lit up like the sun, filling Stiles’ belly with happy butterflies. Kira loved Scott more than any of their packmates except Stiles, and knowing that she was happy at the idea of them being together was comforting in a bone-deep way.

“Well, if that’s settled, then there’s just one thing left to do,” she said, hand on the doorknob. Stiles straightened up and nodded, objective in mind: end this silly charade once and for all, and kiss his best friend.

“Let’s get out there and get your man!”

 


	15. Chapter 15

“Scott Delgado McCall, did you make out with my boyfriend?” Erica demanded, slinging the closet door open. Scott laughed even as the flush built up on his cheeks.

“No, Erica Maria Reyes, I did not,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Too bad. Would have been hot.” Erica pulled them both out into the hallway by the wrists, walking backward with ease despite the height of her heels.

“You know, you really seem keen on the idea of me kissing other people,” Boyd said, face completely blank. “A guy might get the impression you don’t like me quite as much as you say you do.”

“A guy might,” Erica conceded before grinning. “Or a guy might consider _how fucking hot_ it would be, and let me have my fantasies before taking me home and screwing me senseless.”

“....A guy might,” Boyd nodded. Scott couldn’t help but smile at them. He let himself be drawn along in their wake, wondering what terrible idea the packs were going to come up with next. The idea of facing Stiles, of telling him how he felt, was no less terrifying now than it had been the moment Erica had answered the door for them. But there, in the face of Erica’s aggressive joy, Boyd’s pragmatic resolve, their unflinching optimism, it was easier to think: _But what if he said yes_.

“Wait, where are we going?” Scott asked as Erica pulled them through the back double doors.

“Your bros finally got the fire started. We’re going to go get drunk and have a party!”

“But - I thought -” Scott blinked, halting in place despite Erica’s insistent tugging. That was… it? All their scheming and pep talks and just as Scott was deciding that kissing Stiles might not be the worst possible idea in the world, he was on his own?

“Scott,” Erica whined. “The games didn’t work. That’s obvious. You both know you… well. That there’s something there. And I can’t say for sure how much of that something is lifelong friendship plus smoking hot bodies plus a healthy dose of curiosity, and how much of it is legitimately love, but either way, you’re never going to find out if you keep dancing around it like this.”

“Not that you’re not an excellent dancer,” Boyd said, but then frowned. “Wait. I think actually that you are _not_ an excellent dancer. But you are pretty great at avoiding talking about your feelings, and being stupidly self-sacrificial, and having a blindspot for Stiles Stilinski that’s five miles wide.”

“It’s not a blind spot,” Scott muttered, but at the look they leveled him - and seriously, it was freaky, the same look on their very different faces - he shrugged and amended, “It’s more like a near-sighted spot.”

“Like you want to see him nearer, huh?” Erica spun toward the yard where the sounds of the party were already gearing back up. “Time to make a move, McCall. Decide. Use all that True Alpha courage to get what you want for once.”

“I think she means ‘shit or get off the pot,’” Boyd added, completely unhelpful and fully aware of it.

Scott dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Yeah, I get it.”

He followed them down to the clearing, quietly finding his packmates two by two. Danny and Isaac seemed wrapped up in one another. Well, that conversation had been a long time coming. Still, Isaac spared him a quick glance and a flash of gold eyes for encouragement. Kira looked up from where she was passing out glow sticks and nudged Malia in the side as subtly as she could. Of course, Malia immediately blew it by shooting him a big thumbs up and mouthing “YOU CAN DO IT” despite the fact that, if he’d tried, he probably could have heard her whisper across the lawn. Jackson found him, wrapping himself around Scott from behind to trap his arms, less like a hug and more like a stranglehold. But then Jackson was pushing a bottle of alcohol into his hand and raising a glass in toast.

“To getting what you need,” Jackson said, voice oddly hushed.

“And what if that’s not what I want?” Scott took a drink anyway, relishing in the burn down his throat and the slight buzz in the top of his spine.

“Is it ever?” Jackson shrugged. For a moment Scott saw the young man who’d fled to London after begging for the bite, scared and alone and full of the rage he’d conquered in the years since. And then, just as quickly as he had surfaced, Jackson pushed his old self down again. “Listen man, who knows what about Stilinski you could possibly find attractive, but I can guarantee you at least five different girls and three guys at this party right now want to fuck you, so if it doesn’t work out -”

“I’ll be drowning my sorrows in this bottle and sleeping on Isaac’s sofa,” Scott finished for him.

“You know the house is always open to you. Not that I think you’ll need it, but… the offer stands.” Jackson turned, and turned on his Fraternity President swagger, stealing over to Jens with a smooth roll of his body. Scott envied him that, had always been a bit jealous of the way Jackson could just tell when someone wanted him, and acted like _everyone_ did. Scott tried to channel it, the abrupt jut of the chin, the sharp lift of the head, the puff of the chest settled with low, lax shoulders and loose hips. He took a drink from the bottle, feeling the weight of all the alcohol he’d consumed already over the course of the evening, and thought of Jackson as he walked into the clearing, tried to focus on anything but -

But him. Stiles. Standing right there next to the fire, staring into it with his hands jammed in his pockets and the firelight reflecting off his face.

Stiles looked up and caught his eye, mouth quirking a grin at him automatically. His eyebrows lifted as he took in Scott’s posture, sending a wave of self-consciousness all over him. Stiles shook his head, laughing, but nodded him over just the same.

_How do you tell someone you’ve loved all your life that now you love them different?_

_That sounds pretty romantic to me._

“How’s it going, Scotty?” Stiles asked, voice and eyes and face so soft, like he was melting just a little in front of the fire.

“It’s, uh -” Scott’s voice cracked embarrassingly, and they both winced. “It’s good. Um. Glad they finally got the fire started.”

“Same. If I’d had to sit through one more party game…” Stiles trailed off, letting the sentence end between them.

“D’you want to -” Scott gestured awkwardly with the bottle toward a clear spot just outside the ring of light. His stomach twisted in knots as he watched Stiles’ eyes flit over the area, his chin stern up and his face make a decision he probably wasn’t sure about in his head yet.

“Yeah, let me just -” Stiles nabbed a bottle of his own from another party goer, ignoring the squawk of complaint, and then snuffled over to the little patch of grass that seemed to have been cut out of the party specifically for them. Some rough beams encircled the fire pit, making half-hearted benches. They sat side by side, not looking at each other’s faces or bridging the small ocean that was welling up between them.

He couldn’t do it. All this, and he couldn’t get the words to unstick from his tongue. They hovered uneasily in his mouth, but every time he took a deep breath, steeled his shoulders and wet his lips, they hung there in his throat.

After several long moments of silence, Stiles finally huffed and said, “So, Isaac, huh?”

Scott blanched instantly, embarrassment and panic warring in his gut. “Uh - I - well, I mean, I wouldn’t say -”

“He told me earlier. Said he asked you not to tell. It was nice of you to keep it to yourself, even if it does make me -” Stiles broke off, laughing.

“Make you… what?” Scott dug his fingers into the palms of his hands, trying to keep control of the hope lifting his voice.

“Irrationally angry,” Stiles finished. Scott deflated. “Hurt, that you kept something that big from me. Concerned, because you’ve never kept a secret like this from me before in your life, so there’s got to be a reason. Sad because I don’t know what the reason is, but I know it’s separating us, and I don’t like it. I don’t want to be separate.”

“I don’t either, Stiles, and I’m sorry, I just -”

“Jealous.”

Scott’s breath caught in his chest. He turned, trying to catch the look on Stiles’ face, but with his profile lit by flickering firelight it was impossible to tell what was going through his mind.

“Jealous that someone else is touching you. That some other guy got to kiss you and I haven’t. That there are all these people in the world who can’t love you half as well as I can, but touched you anyway.”

Scott frowned. “I wouldn’t say ‘all these,’ Stiles, it’s not like I’ve slept with -”

“Scott.” Stiles turned, obviously fighting to hold onto his serious expression even as a smile cracked through. “Everything I just said, and that’s what you want to talk about?”

“Well, yeah.” Scott nodded, taking another sip from his bottle and then setting it aside. “I don’t really want to talk about the rest.”

Stiles’ face fell immediately, eyes widening in panic and mouth working around air. “Wha - but - they -”

Scott took Stiles’ face between his hands, fingers caressing his temples and thumbs stroking over his cheekbones. “I love our pack, Stiles, all of them. But sometimes they talk too much.”

Their mouths met easily, smiling and chaste. Stiles laughed against Scott’s lips, throwing his arms around Scott’s shoulders and pulling him off balance on the beam. Their foreheads knocked together painfully, and Stiles pulled back with a wince but Scott pulled him right back in, lavishing small kisses all around his mouth, making Stiles’ brow furrow in surprise.

“You know,” Stiles broke away, nose nuzzling against Scott’s. “I’ve always had a thing for the strong silent type -”

“No you haven’t,” Scott laughed, pushing at his shoulder and then pulling him back in with the same hand. He kissed Stiles more firmly, warmth bubbling up in him and spreading through his limbs, making his lips tingle and his chest ache. His hands dragged through Stiles’ hair, mindless of the stiff gel, and down the long column of his neck, scraping short nails gently against the skin of his throat. Now that he could touch, it was like the floodgates had burst open; he didn’t want to pull away for even a moment. Stiles shivered under the attention, mouth soft and open under Scott’s lips and eyelashes fanned beautifully over his cheeks.

“Hey,” Scott said right against his mouth, smiling as Stiles arched into it, snugging their bodies closer together. “Hey, Stiles, I need to tell you something.”

“What?” Stiles asked, eyebrows quirked over his closed eyes.

“Hey, look at me,” Scott asked, leaning back so that Stiles’ face could come into focus. Stiles’ eyes were bright, wide open and full of feeling.

“What is it, Scotty?”

Scott grinned. “Hey, uh, Stiles. I think I might like you.”

Stiles’ guffaw of laughter was worth the thud of the ground at his back.

 


	16. Chapter 16

Stiles wanted to groan as he dragged his too-dry tongue over his chapped lips, but it would be more trouble than it was worth, honestly. Sunlight bored through his eyelids to pierce his sensitive eyes, painting everything murky red and blinding black. Stiles’ brain whirled, trying to remember what time of day the sun made it through the lone window in his room, before blinking awake suddenly.

The sun never made it into his room.

Which meant he wasn’t in his room.

Which meant he was with -

 

_They stumbled through the door of the apartment, kissing haphazardly, more enthusiasm than skill. Scott still tasted mildly of anise liquor and s’mores, and Stiles did his best to lick the taste out of his mouth with broad swipes of his tongue._

_“Gonna get you inside,” Stiles promised, half the words intelligible. The other half were lost somewhere against Scott’s lips, but he figured Scott got it if the way he was rolling his body forward, squeezing tightly to Stiles’ hips, had anything to do with it. “Gonna - gonna do the thing - the fingers thing…”_

_“Put ‘em in me,” Scott slurred back, eyes still half open. “So long.”_

_“Farewell?” Stiles giggled, and Scott giggled back._

_“Auf Wiederhose-hen…?” Scott tried, looking adorably confused. His mouth drew into a pout, eyebrows furrowed while he tried to work out which part he’d said wrong._

_“Something like…” Stiles nodded, pulling him toward the couch. Scott stilled, shaking his head slowly back and forth, long enough that Stiles wasn’t sure if he was saying no or just enjoying the sensation. He stilled Scott’s face with a hand on either side of his head, almost dizzy from following its progress with his eyes._

_“No.” Well, that answered that … wondering… then._

_“C’mon,” Stiles wheedled, pulling again, but Scott just scooped Stiles up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, leaving Stiles face to face with that True Alpha ass he enjoyed so much. He patted it affectionately, cooing soft words of praise as he slid his hands into Scott’s back pockets._

_“That’s very nice, yeah, very - you’re uh, very pretty in these - are these jeans? These are jeans. These are really good jeans.”_

_“Are you talking to my ass?” Scott asked, swinging them around so he could turn on the lights in his bedroom._

_“If I am it’s your fault,” Stiles huffed, trying to cross his arms over his chest but unable to pull them out of Scott’s pockets._

_“How’s it my fault?”_

_Suddenly there was a flip and a tussle and Stiles landed on his back in Scott’s bed, head hanging slightly over the side._

_“S’this how you want me?” he asked mouth hanging open in a way that could be suggestive if he looked like he meant for it to be._

_“How’s it my fault?” Scott repeated, looking at him with wide, glazed eyes._

_“S’probably ‘cause it’s nice. Don’t you want me to talk to nice - uh, people? Things? Scott? Don’t you want nice things for me?” There. That made sense. Mostly._

_Scott’s face softened instantly, sunshine smile lighting him up from the inside despite the haze of drunkeness all over him. “Of course I want nice things for you Stiles. I love you Stiles. You should have all the nice things Sti-”_

_“Are you saying my name over and over so you don’t say the wrong one?” Stiles narrowed just one eye. Seemed appropriate._

_“No!” Scott shook his head overzealously again and accidentally thunked it against the headboard. He winced, rubbing the spot, and Stiles laughed and rubbed it too. “No. I just. Like saying it. Stiles. Like to - ugh - ow - you know. Didn’t tell you for so long -”_

_“Yeah, because you’re an idiot -”_

_“Yeah because I’m an - hey, you didn’t either!”_

_“Yeah, I didn’t even…” Stiles trailed off, realizing Scott’s dick was basically right in front of him. “Your dick is basically right in front of me.”_

_“Sorry dude,” Scott said, but didn’t move in any way, especially backward. Not that Stiles minded._

_“I don’t mind.” He nudged his face forward, nosing at the placket of Scott’s jeans half-hardedly. Heartedly. Hardedly. He giggled._

_“Wha’s…?”_

_“Hardedly.” Stiles laughed harder, curling up on himself as he did. Scott shook his head, confused, and then dropped on the bed beside him. His head was near Stiles’ hips, which Stiles took as the obvious invitation that it was._

_“Whoa, Stiles!” Scott squawked as Stiles rolled them over, his knees braced on either side of Scott’s ears. His pants were too tight to deal with the rapid fill of his cock, so he whined and hunched his hips forward, hoping Scott would get the message._

_“That was kind of rude,” Scott said, disgruntled._

_Obviously not getting the message._

_Stiles figured he could fix that pretty easily though. With Scott’s mouth where it was, it meant that_ his _mouth was also where_ it _was, which meant -_

_Getting a zipper down with your teeth while intoxicated was kind of hard._

_“Ow!” Scott complained after an ambitious tug on the zipper ended with Stiles’ chin digging into somewhere that probably was not all that comfortable. “Hey, c’mon, stop…”_

_Scott rolled them back onto their sides, pawing at Stiles haphazardly until they were face to face, laying crossways on his double bed.  Scott’s hand pet soft against his ribs, sliding under his t-shirt to stroke against the soft skin there. Stiles shivered under his touch, pressing his face into Scott’s neck._

_“I was gonna get it,” Stiles protested between yawns._

_“You were gonna get what?” Scott huffed, wrapping his arm around Stiles and pulling them tightly together. Stiles hummed happily, wondering when he’d stopped being able to open his eyes._

_“It. You know. The D.”_

_“Only want me for my body, huh?” Scott said, voice half a low growl. Stiles shrugged, sort of, with only his eyebrows._

_“It’s a pretty good body, man.”_

_Scott tensed just slightly under him, like maybe he wasn’t completely sure if Stiles was…_

_“Joking, Scotty,” Stiles whispered, kissing lightly at the hollow of Scott’s throat. “Want all of you, all the time. Whatever you’ll give me, I want it.”_

_Scott settled, reaching up to stroke sleepily through the hair at Stiles’ nape._

_“But especially the D?”_

_“Yeah, ‘specially the D.”_


	17. Chapter 17

Scott turned over in his bed, trying to get comfortable. It was so hot, way warmer than it should be in December, and Scott wondered for a second if Stiles had turned the heat up again in the middle of the night even though they were trying to save money so -

 _Stiles_.

Scott flipped over, limbs flailing comically, managing to hit himself in the cheek but avoid Stiles’ smirking form altogether.

“Decided to join us in the land of the living, I see,” Stiles joked, eyes soft. His breath smelled like mint and there were traces of the cool, tingly face wash they shared still on his skin. Scott had lost his shirt at some point during the night, but his jeans still clung uncomfortably to his waist, half-zipped. Stiles, on the other hand, was draped comfortably in Scott’s hoodie, body half-hidden under the sheets.

“Who is it today? Iron Man? Wolverine?” Scott asked, hyperaware of the smell of the campfire in his hair and the flashes of skin peeking out of Stiles’ zipper.

“Maybe I’m channeling Hawkeye today,” Stiles shrugged, too casual to be actually casual at all.

“Yeah? Uh… gonna tell me you were being mind-controlled by someone evil last night but the power of Scarlett Johansson’s friendship broke you out of it?” Scott really hoped not.

“I can’t believe you have half the dialog to _The Avengers_ memorized but you can’t stay awake through Star Wars -” Stiles started, but then physically restrained himself. “But no. What I was going to say was, either, I could be channeling Human Disaster Hawkeye in which I do literally nothing right ever, or -”

Scott waited, holding his breath while Stiles toyed absently with the comforter, making his decision.

“Or?”

“Or, I could have really good aim.”

The kiss landed a bit off center, actually, but Scott didn’t mind a bit. He let Stiles push him onto his back, straddle his hips and press down at his wrists, holding him in place as their lips pressed together. Kissing Stiles was everything he’d thought it would be: sloppy and impatient and good and hard and kind of funny, when he felt Stiles’ lips curl up or when one of them cracked a joke without taking their mouths away, and really fucking hot. His hips rolled up against Stiles’, searching for friction, but his jeans still snugged tight around his waist, making it hard to move his body like he wanted to.

“That a struggle down there?” Stiles laughed, dotting quick, wet kisses at Scott’s lower lip, drawing it between his teeth so Scott couldn’t answer.

“A ‘it,” Scott tried anyway, making Stiles’ nose crinkle. Scott pulled back and kissed that crinkle, kissed all the little parts of Stiles’ face he loved so much, had wanted to kiss for so long, kept himself from even though he knew no one could ever love Stiles the way he could, did.

“ _Your_ aim is terrible,” Stiles grimaced, fingers working indelicately at Scott’s fly, trying to push his jeans down before they were even unzipped the rest of the way. Scott laughed and unzipped Stiles’ - his - Stiles’ - hoodie, moving it so he could get at Stiles’ neck, his shoulder.

“I’m kissing exactly where I want to kiss,” Scott said right against his skin. A chill stole over Stiles’ arms, leaving goosebumps in its wake, and Scott kissed them away. He pulled Stiles’ hands up in his own, kissing each precious fingertip, lingering over his knuckles with soft, comfortable sucks. Stiles huffed a little noise between them, but instead of being rewarded with a blissed out expression, Scott found only impatient annoyance. “What?”

“I’ve been waiting literally every day of my life to get into your pants and you realized you were in love with me six goddamn months ago and you’re _kissing_ my _hands_?”

Scott grinned. He took one of Stiles’ long, slim middle fingers into his mouth, stroking it with his tongue just the way he would Stiles’ cock, hollowing his cheeks and moaning around it as obviously as he could. Stiles’ expression went from annoyed to shocked to overcome with arousal comically fast.

“Scotty, ugh, Scott, yeah, okay, that’s - fuck, man I’m gonna -”

“Told you,” Scott said, letting Stiles finger slip free to rest on his lips. “I like hands.”

“Well you are getting hands, buddy,” Stiles nodded too fast, almost overbalancing on the bed. “You are getting hands, and a mouth, and arms,  hell maybe a couple of feet if things get exciting, and -”

“Your dick?” Scott kept his face as clear as he could, hoping Stiles wouldn’t recognize the little remnant of fear that stayed stuck in his belly even after they’d spent all evening by the bonfire, holding one another and kissing.

Stiles’ chatter stilled. His mouth was wet and open, lips shiny and pink from where Scott’s had pressed against them, and for a second Scott worried, thought maybe - against all evidence to the contrary - he’d read this wrong, and that little remnant of fear grew. It filled his stomach, ballooning out until it was all he could hear: _Never let me fall in love with another werewolf_.

“We don’t - I mean, you don’t have to - I’m sorry, just let me -” Scott tried to pull away, but Stiles caught him, pushing him down into the mattress with his body.

“Where ya goin’ big guy?”

“Um.” Scott blinked up at him, trying to decode the look on Stiles’ face and knowing he wouldn’t be able to. If he’d read this wrong, it was obvious he couldn’t read Stiles at all, and -

“Seems like maybe we’ve got a misunderstanding here. So I’m going to clear that up. You love me, correct?”

Scott nodded slowly, unable to hide it even while his heart pounded against his ribs loud enough for Isaac to hear back at the frat house.

“Okay. And I -” Stiles hesitated just a moment, filling his lungs up and letting the air out through his nose before he continued. “And I love you too. I’m - in love. With you. Have been for. I dunno. Years, probably, without even really noticing it.”

“I’ve loved you my whole life,” Scott said. “And now I love you different.”

“Wow, that’s - that’s really fucking sweet, ugh-” Stiles leaned down to kiss him, pressing hard in his joy. “It took us long enough to get here, Scotty. I’m not leaving now.”

“Promise?” Scott asked, feeling turned out of his skin, the weight of his question too light on his lips, too heavy on his heart.

“Always got me,” Stiles reminded him, easy and gruff at the same time, and then Scott’s arms were around his neck, pulling him close so they could lick into one another’s mouths, chests heaving together.

The zipper from the hoodie scratched his bare chest, but Scott barely noticed when Stiles took it off, except to note how much darker his hands were on Stiles’ pink-pale skin, both of them lovelier in contrast. Together they worked Scott’s jeans off, legs bunching awkwardly around his ankles before Stiles forced them off with his foot. He bit scorching kisses into Scott’s neck, making the breath catch in his chest. The first touch of their bodies bare against one another left him gasping, panting for air, trying to find a way to force down the lust building dizzyingly in his gut.

“Oh, fuck, Scott, yes, yes, this is, yes,” Stiles babbled, bringing his body down in long, clumsy rolls against Scott’s. “This is - you want - it’s not too fast, right?”

“Stiles, we’ve been best friends since we were four,” Scott ground out, biting his bottom lip as the hard curve of Stiles’ dick rubbed against his own.

“Right. Longest courtship ever. Awesome. Got it.” Except Stiles was pulling away, moving off of him, and Scott ached to have that skin back, to have it against his.

“Wait, where are you -?”

“I remember somebody saying something about hands,” Stiles grinned. His lips grazed Scott’s ear as he worked one hand behind his head, fingers massaging his scalp.

“Oh - oh, _Stiles_ , I -” Scott whimpered as those fingers tightened, pulling his hair and revealing the long line of his neck to Stiles’ mouth. He sucked hard kisses along Scott’s skin, marking him up with bruises Scott wished he could keep. It felt amazing, like Stiles was looking into his brain, teasing out all the fantasies that had driven him crazy over the last six months.

“What’s next?” Stiles asked, voice soft and breathless. Scott wracked his brain, trying to corral his thoughts enough to say it, but Stiles surged on ahead of him. His hands framed Scott’s throat, palms resting over his collarbones, and pushed down gently. It wasn’t a threat; Scott could throw him off as easily as he could kiss him. He didn’t want to though. He wanted Stiles to keep him there, to hold him down and own him, to want him enough to fight for it a little.

“This is okay?” Stiles whispered. “This is what you want, right?”

Scott nodded hastily, catching his breath when the movement caused Stiles’ hand to slip further up his throat. Stiles corrected his grip with a laugh.

“So excited.”

Scott flushed hard, keening under Stiles’ hands and his mouth.

“That’s okay, I like it,” Stiles said against his ear. “I like knowing how much you want it.”

“Please -?” He wasn’t even positive what he was asking for, but then Stiles’ clever fingers circled his nipple, setting the sensitive nerves there on fire, and it was suddenly extremely obvious. “Please please please, in me, please, want it, want -”

“I know what you want,” Stiles grinned, biting at his shoulder, and Scott’s cock couldn’t physically get any harder but it was trying. “Not gonna leave you hangin’. Just taking my time with you. Don’t you want me to take my time?”

“No,” Scott grunted. Stiles laughed.

“Yeah you do. C’mon, Scotty. You thought about it enough. Jerked off thinking about it, about me doing this to you. Don’t want to rush now, do ya?” He pinched and pulled at Scott’s skin, teasing his nipple mercilessly with three fingers before switching. Scott groaned at the sensation, one side of his chest pulsing hot and the other side oversensitive under Stiles’ hand. He arched his back, pushing against Stiles’ body and searching out more friction, more touch, anything to distract him from the near-painful throb of his cock.

“So impatient,” Stiles sighed, and dragged his tongue over Scott’s nipple in a long, wide stripe. His hand moved further down, rubbing hard over Scott’s flat abdomen, trailing a circle around his belly button. The combination of sensations flooding his body was overwhelming; it was like Stiles was everywhere at once, touching him and kissing him and rutting lightly against his hip and -

“Shhhh, shhhh, s’okay,” Stiles said, smile in his voice. “I’ve got you, it’s okay. Not much longer now.”

“...Wha?” Scott asked, half-dazed, the taste of words he wasn’t sure he’d said still in his mouth.

“You must want me pretty bad, huh?” Stiles grinned down at him, eyes bright in the mid-morning sun. Scott’s tongue felt thick in his mouth as nimble fingers danced over the jut of his hipbone, caressing the vee of muscle pointing toward his groin. He wanted to say something cool, laugh it off, but he’d wanted this for so long, to have Stiles above him and around him and in him. He couldn’t think beyond -

“Please, Stiles.”

“Yeah,” Stiles nodded, smile sliding from his face to be replaced with something darker, more intent. Stiles kissed his mouth, pressing hard into his lips as his fingers slid down further, circling the dry pucker of Scott’s hole. He didn’t rub hard enough to push in, just enough to tease, to make Scott’s hips flex up and his mouth drop open. Stiles was overwhelming in the way he’d always been, taking up too much space in Scott’s brain, fitting himself perfectly against Scott’s body, making Scott’s heart beat frantically in his chest. When slick fingers probed achingly careful at Scott’s hole, he had to grind his teeth and count to ten to keep from coming immediately.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Stiles soothed, pulling his hand back. Scott grabbed for his wrist, stilling him.

“Not in pain,” he said through a clenched jaw. “Just. Trying to keep from. Yeah.”

“Already?” Stiles’ delighted face was almost endearing, until it was replaced with a smug smile. “I mean, yeah, obviously, you’re holding on by a thread here because I’m awesome but -”

Scott laughed. “Feels good. Don’t ruin it, ‘kay?”

Stiles rolled his eyes and huffed out a breath. The overacted pout distracted Scott from the way his finger was probing back at Scott’s hole until suddenly it was in, filling him just slightly. Stiles’ touch was electrifying, not specifically the vague discomfort of having something inside him, but the knowledge that it was Stiles, that it was preparation for something he’d been waiting long months for without hope of experiencing it.

“More,” Scott demanded, grinding down on Stiles’ hand like he could maybe will another finger inside himself.

“Could you just let me handle this please?” Stiles laughed, kissing him as he teased his middle finger around Scott’s rim. “Believe it or not, I’ve actually done this before.”

“Well I haven’t, so -” Scott trailed off, hoping the flush on his face wasn’t quite as brilliant as it felt.

“You - you haven’t - _oh god_.” Stiles smashed their faces together, finally giving Scott what he was begging for. Stiles’ mouth was hot and forceful against his own, his fingers nimble, searching out spots inside Scott’s body that lit him up. He could feel the rut of Stiles’ dick against his hip, the way Stiles’ fingers twisted a bit as they drove in quicker, glancing over his prostate in hasty, clumsy brushes. It was _fine_ \- it was better than fine, having Stiles inside him doing more for his racing pulse than any physical sensation. Still, when Stiles bit his lip, tugging it gently with his teeth, and rubbed at his prostate just right with those long, quick fingers, Scott saw stars. He moaned loudly, hips bucking up against Stiles’ hand, forcing his fingers deeper into Scott’s hole. The press of them inside him, the weight of his thumb against Scott’s rim made him crazy. He reached down to feel for himself, sliding his own fingers over Stiles’ hand, over the stretched rim of his hole, eyes slamming shut at the pleasure of it.

“‘Kay, wanted to draw this out a little longer, but -” Stiles grimaced, and Scott kissed him quiet again.

“Don’t. Just - _ungh_ , fuck me, okay? Want it so bad. Doesn’t matter if it’s quick.”

“Yeah, yeah, just - hold on.”

Stiles fumbled with a condom, face apologetic as he dropped the little packet _twice_.

“We don’t need -” Scott started, but Stiles waved him off.

“If you want me inside you for longer than three milliseconds, then yeah, we do.”

“That bad huh?” Scott tried to hold back his smile but the absurd look on Stiles’ face made that almost impossible. Stiles leaned over him, placing soft, sweet kisses on both of his cheeks.

“Terrible,” he deadpanned.

“Worst ever,” Scott agreed as Stiles settled between his legs, slim hips fitting perfectly inside the cup of his own. For a moment they just rocked together, Stiles’ sheathed cock grazing Scott’s bare one, both of them hard and trembling as they kissed, oddly chaste and closed-mouthed.

The first bumbling press of Stiles’ cock against his hole was hot and strange and too-large and maybe a little bit frightening but also wonderful and a little wet and much, much too fast.

“Scott -!” Stiles gasped, eyes wide as he pushed slowly in, hips shuddering and flexing with the overwhelmed pleasure of it.

Scott pulled air in through his nose, trying to breathe through the harsh stretch of it, comforting himself with Stiles’ blissful expression. Stiles’ body lowered carefully until they touched from hip to collar, skin hot and slick between them. Stiles found Scott’s cock with his right hand, and buried the left in Scott’s hair, pulling and teasing them both with soft, gentle strokes.

“You okay?” Stiles asked, voice strained as he held himself still inside the clutch of Scott’s body.

“Yeah,” Scott nodded, still panting, cock only half-hard. “Er, yeah, I mean - will be, I think, soon.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, pushing Scott’s hair back from his face. He rolled his body once, just slightly, and the hot drag of Stiles inside him made Scott’s insides go hot and bright all at once. “Yeah? Gonna go slow. Don’t worry Scotty. If you need to stop just say something.”

“Don’t stop,” Scott said instead, letting Stiles drag his legs up, prop one of them around his hips and the other over the cradle of Stiles’ elbow. The stretch burned in a different way, and when Stiles rolled his hips again it felt so much better. Each long, slow thrust burned through him anew, until he was meeting every push of Stiles’ hips with one of his own, gasping harsh breaths against Stiles’ mouth.

“Feels - ungh - so -”

“Yeah?” Stiles nipped at his mouth, pulling almost all the way out and pushing back in with long, fluid strokes. Every smack of skin together made Scott’s stomach clench, his cock throb in Stiles’ hand. Precome beaded at the head, and Stiles swiped his thumb through it, giving Scott a twist at the end of every stroke. It was overwhelming, being filled by him and touched by him and kissed by him and -

“Oh fuck, _Stiles_ , fuck, fuck, _what_ \- ugh -!”

“Got it,” Stiles grinned, stroking in at the exact same spot, cock rubbing over his prostate maddeningly.

“Fuck, yes, _yes_ , you do, wow,” Scott huffed, trying to get control of himself, but Stiles wouldn’t let him. He sped his thrusts, pounding into Scott’s hot, throbbing hole with incredible focus, working his hand quick and light on Scott’s cock. His mouth dragged over the edge of Scott’s jaw, biting and kissing in equal parts until Scott felt like his entirety was outside of his skin, spun out of love for Stiles and pleasure in their bodies.

“So good,” Stiles groaned, starting to crack at the edges as Scott clenched hard around him, only half voluntarily. “So fucking tight and good and - god, can’t believe I’m the only person you’ve done this with. Can’t believe you - ungh - you waited for me, you beautiful fucking - cannot believe you waited this long to -”

“Me either,” Scott nodded, kissing him frantically, clinging to Stiles with his hands and his leg and the soft, tight heat of his ass. “Never again.”

“That’s right baby,” Stiles grunted. “Never keeping - ungh - anything from me again, are you?”

“No, no, never.” His voice was ragged, heat building in the pit of his stomach and warmth flooding his chest, his mouth. “Never again, gonna tell you everything, gonna tell you I love you. Every day. Gonna -”

“I’m gonna -” Stiles stuttered, “Scott, I’m gonna -”

“Come on,” Scott begged, clenching around Stiles as much as he could, reveling in the feel of Stiles’ cock pushing him open on each hard thrust. “Want it. Want you.”

“You first,” Stiles argued, moving his hand faster on Scott’s cock, working him over until the heat under Scott’s skin began to spill over, orgasm welling up from deep inside him to pulse out over Stiles’ hand, both of their stomachs.

“Love you Stiles.”

“Shit, you too, Scott, _fu-_ ” Stiles’ bitten off curse was all the warning he got before Stiles pulled out. Stiles stripped the condom off in one harsh pull, pumping himself through his orgasm one-handed, coming all over the mess of Scott’s spent cock.

“Wow,” Scott said, laughter bubbling up hysterically in his stomach. It was ridiculous but he couldn’t help it, the sheer joy of the moment spilling out of his mouth and into the shared air between them.

“Wow,” Stiles agreed, flopping down next to him on the bed. One arm snaked around his belly, narrowly avoiding the mess, and the other curled around his head, burying long fingers in his hair. Scott’s legs dropped to the bed, tired and sated and full to bursting.

“That was…” Scott trailed off, turning his face toward Stiles’ for a kiss that was softer, lazier, sweeter than he ever imagined them being together.

“I meant it,” Stiles said, face suddenly serious. He bumped his chin against Scott’s shoulder affectionately, pressing a small kiss there. “I love you, Scott. And I know I’m not like, uh, the poster boy for emotional openness or anything, but -”

“I meant it too,” Scott shrugged, trying to keep the fondness out of his voice as Stiles stumbled over his words. “Never again. No more secrets.”

“If I can handle you being a werewolf, I can handle anything. Even your totally dumb, gross crush on me.”

Scott rolled his eyes but when Stiles reeled him in for a kiss, brighter and sharper and hotter despite the banked desire between them, he went willingly.

* * *

 

_“Stiles?” Scott asked drowsily, leaning back against Stiles’ chest. The fire in front of them threw off heat and light that felt like it was filling him up, thrumming through his veins and pulsing with his heart. Behind him Stiles grunted, shifted against the stack of sandbags he was leaning on and wrapped his arms more tightly around Scott’s shoulders._

_“Yeah, Scotty?” His voice was soft, hard to hear, but Scott’s ears were trained for it. They had been long before he ever got the bite, trained to hear all of Stiles’ moods and whims, to pick out sarcasm from sincerity and wishes from words._

_“I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you.”_

_“You still sort of haven’t, actually,” Stiles drawled, but there was enough affection in his voice that Scott knew it was okay, even without looking at him._

_“I’m also sorry basically everyone knew before you did.”_

_“It happens to me a lot.” He could feel Stiles shrug. “Not with you, normally. But… you know, with everything else. Can’t see the fire for the flames sometimes.”_

_“I don’t think that’s how the saying goes.” Scott struggled up and turned a bit between Stiles’ legs. Stiles’ face was hard to make out in the flickering light of the bonfire, but the little smile that tugged at the corners of his lips set Scott’s mind at ease._

_“Seemed appropriate,” Stiles shrugged, and pulled him in. Their lips met in a warm, soft push, and Scott ignored the distant whoops of joy he heard from Jackson across the clearing._

_“I love you,” he said in a rush, ready to be unburdened, to let it out into the air after all the time he spent hiding it away. The words could hurt where they were, standing between them, but they’d hurt him hidden away, too, separated him from his pack and left them all more vulnerable for it. He pressed them into Stiles’ mouth, each word a kiss against lips he’d never thought he’d get to have. “I. Love. You.”_

_Stiles held him close, petting at his shoulders and eating the words out of his mouth._

_“I know.”_

_And he did. Scott loved him, and he knew._

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! I may eventually write more in this universe (like Boyd and Erica's wedding!!!!) but for now, this is where we part. I hope you enjoyed it even a fraction as much as I did. Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> Your feedback is valuable to all fic writers, and I'm no exception. If you enjoyed this story, please let me know.
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](http://quicklikelight.tumblr.com).


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